Preface To Whispers: Speak Up!

Is whispering sometimes louder than normal speech? This odd Facebook page thinks so.

But is whispering bad for your vocal cords when singing? Apparently not. How do I know? Because someone asked that question on Yahoo! Answers. He asked: "I heard that whispering can damage your vocal chords slowly. I whisper sing songs that I know by heart. I sing death metal vocals and I need to know if this is bad for you."

He sings death metal vocals & he wonders if whispering is bad for him? Anyway, the answer is here.

Is whispering rude? The Busy Mama thinks so!

Something else that may be rude is me telling you that I'm going to be on the radio this evening playing hip hop from ten pm to midnight Lexington time. You can listen in Lexington on the 88.1 frequency or you can listen anywhere at wrfl.fm. It's not that important, so I thought I'd whisper it at you.

But Have You Heard About Boomslang?

I took a nap this afternoon because I subbed someone's show this morning from six to nine am & didn't get to sleep last night before one am so I got roughly three hours sleep & by the way I am still tired.

The show that I subbed included the amazing WRFL Surf! & one person on the Facebook page described my deejaying as "Inanity personified..." If only they had been commenting on Self Help Radio, I could have used it as a quote for promotion! Ah well.

Anyway, Boomslang is a music festival held every year (at least for the past three years) by WRFL featuring an eclectic mix of independent, obscure, or fill-in-the-blank bands, including the first Queerslang, which seems pretty cool. I am only vaguely involved in it - I have volunteered for busy work, & will volunteer during the festival - but I had my first Boomslang anxiety dream while I napped. At some point during the dream I realized it was a week until Boomslang, & woke up feeling only slightly relieved. I mean, it's only a week away!

If you're in or near Lexington, the festival may be worth your while. It's basically Friday through Sunday, at a small number of venue, not as crazy as SXSW, & it does look like maybe next week will be quite lovely. Read more about it at Boomslang fest dot com. I'm convinced there's something there for you - & most probably more than a little something!

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Twelve

Well, you learn something new every A Joke A Day A Week.

Did you know, for example, there is a sub-category of jokes called "Genie Jokes"?

There are! In fact there's a whole page (okay, probably more) on the internet for them, at weirdity dot com slash genie. Indeed, you can find genie jokes on such diverse topics as "Miscellaneous Genies," "Well Meaning Genies," "Anti-Men & Anti-Women Genies," "Rocket Science Genies" (I don't really want to know), "Friends & Genies" (doesn't that sound like a DH Lawrence book?), "Tough Cookie Genies," & of course "Smutty Genie Jokes" - need I point out they're "(Adults Only)"?

Here's what it says "about Genie Jokes":

Genie jokes vary around the premise that the subject finds a bottle/brass lamp/similar antique, from which, by chance, the Genie is liberated after a long incarceration. Usually, the joke illustrates the stupidity of the fortunate, or the risks of careless use of language. Occasionally, & worth collecting, are those that give the Genie his revenge for imprisonment or other ulterior motive."

One of this week's A Joke A Day was in fact a genie joke, which went:

Married couples, both 60 years old, were celebrating their 35th anniversary. During their party, a fairy appeared to congratulate them and grant them each one a wish. The wife wanted to travel around the world. The fairy waved her wand and poof - the wife had tickets in her hand for a world cruise. Next, the fairy asked the husband what he wanted. He said, "I wish I had a wife 30 years younger than me." So the fairy picked up her wand and poof - the husband was 90.

Of course, in typical A Joke A Day fashion, the "genie joke" - it was labelled as such - didn't have a genie in it, but a fairy. Which is, as you might imagine, not exactly the same as a genie, although to be fair, a genie wouldn't just appear to "congratulate" a "married couples" which was just two people.

Is it a very good joke? Perhaps it's in the telling. Here is the way the joke appears on the Genie Jokes website, under the "Anti-Men Genies" section. Please note that someone has taken care to make sure the joke is well-written & has some internal logical consistency. Unlike, you know, the drivel that passes for A Joke A Day:

There once was a couple who had been married for many years ... happily married. They had met in their teens, it was love at first sight. Their families got on well, their friends approved ... they married young.

After bringing up the kids, they decided to take a cruise before planning a long and happy retirement. They could afford a five-day short trip around the Mediterranean. The cruise gave them a day wandering around the gift shops of the Greek island of Santorini.

In the back of a dark, almost deserted store, the wife found a dusty old lamp. She gave it a quick polish, to see what it could look like ... and out popped our friendly neighborhood genie.

"I usually give just one wish", said the genie, "but I can see that you two are a couple still in love after all these years; you may each have a wish."

"Oooh!" said the wife, "I'd like to be on a proper ocean cruise ... somewhere in the South Pacific".

And in an instant, she was gone, wafted off to her dream ... maybe she meant to include her husband, but these wishes tend to be taken literally.

"And you, sir?", asked the genie.

Conscious that he was alone, and the world was at his fingertips, the husband thought long and hard ...

"I'd like a wife thirty years younger than me", he eventually decided.

And in an instant, he aged thirty years, and the genie disappeared.

Moral: Wish for what you will ... but be careful if the genie is a woman.

A better joke, although I could do without the ellipses... & the moral.

Can A Radio Show Relax?

Relax? RELAX? Who can relax in this day & age? In this time of confusion & crisis? Only hipsters can relax! & they do it ironically!

Self Help Radio relaxed today, though, enough to make a show about relaxing. Can't relax? I can't blame you. Perhaps there's something relaxing in today's show for you. If not, you should do what I do: rely upon alcohol & drugs.

The show in its entirety is at the Self Help Radio website. It's been divided into two soothing parts: part one will rub your feet while part two plays music on a zither. Or something. Probably not. What's in the two parts is below.

(part one)

"I've Got To Learn To Relax More, Yo!" Innerstance.Beatbox _All Little Boys Do Silly Little Dances_
"Lighten Up Again" Mocean Worker _Mix & Match_
"(Relax) You Will Think You Are A Chicken" Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet _Sport Fishin'_

"Take It Easy" Fats Waller _1935 Vol. 1_
"Relax-Ay-Voo (with Line Renaud)" Dean Martin _Memories Are Made Of This_
"Relax Max" Dinah Washington _Swingin' Miss 'D'_
"Relax" Elvis Presley _It Happened At The World's Fair_
"Relax & Mambo" Machito & His Orchestra _Sabroso: The Afro-Latin Groove_
"Take It Easy My Brother Charlie" Kahami Karie _Kahami Karie_

"Relax" Bobby Conn & The Glass Gypsies _The Homeland_
"Relax" Calvin Harris _Ready For The Weekend_

(part two)

"Relax" The Dandy Warhols _Come On Feel The Dandy Warhols_
"Rush To Relax" Eddy Current Suppression Ring _Rush To Relax_

"You Gots To Chill" EPMD _Strictly Business_
"Relax Baby Be Cool" Serge Gainsbourg _Aux Armes Et Caetera_
"Tomorrow Never Knows" The Beatles _Revolver_
"Relax" Petra Haden _Petra Haden Sings: The Who Sell Out_
"Unwind" The Rosebuds _The Rosebuds Unwind_

"Relax Your Mind" Leadbelly _Leadbelly's Last Sessions_
"Relax & Take It Easy" Tommy Duncan With The Ranger Trio _Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From The Golden Age_
"Never Relaxed" Daniel Johnston _Songs Of Pain_
"I'm Gonna Take It Easy" Gabriel Brown _Roll & Tumble Blues - A History Of Slide Guitar_

Whither Relax?

I am so exhausted while preparing this radio show with the theme "relax." I drove (with the wife & the dogs) to Atlanta yesterday to visit a friend from Austin who happened to be in Atlanta for his birthday. I had read that the visit would only take a six hour drive, but stupidly assumed the drive would take us through Nashville, & so added ninety minutes to the journey by driving through Atlanta. Then, today, I drove back. The right way, though, up I-75 through Knoxville.

We did manage to eat some amazing vegan food in Nashville at a place called The Wild Cow. Oh my invisible friend in the sky, their vegan reuben was amazing. They also had beet hummus. I had previously heard you couldn't beat beet hummus, & I was right.

In Atlanta we ate Ethiopian food at a place called Desta. Though they didn't serve the food in a traditional way, the place still made amazing Ethiopian food. It was spicy in all the right ways. The most charming thing that happened is that a Latino working there, asking us if we wanted more injera, said, "Do you want more tortillas?" We loved that.

I give them both hearty shout-outs & don't give shout-outs to any asshole drivers who apparently don't know the rules of the road. A long drive with dickwads on the road is the opposite of relaxation.

What is relaxation? Find out tomorrow morning (that's Monday) from 7:30 to 9am, on the 88.1 frequency in Lexington, & online everywhere else at wrfl dot fm. If I'm not too relaxed after the show, I'll archive it at the the Self Help Radio website.

Chill out. Listen!

Preface To Relax: How Do You Want To Relax Today?

I'll be taking a relaxing drive to Atlanta today. There I shall relax with my friend Joe, who's turning 44 today, which is 1/15th of 666. He's got so long to go.

I'll be back in time to do a show about relaxing, don't worry. Seriously. Chill out.

Poor, Burning Texas

As you may or may not have heard, my hometown (well, the town I lived in for over twenty years, & the town where I did most of my radio) of Austin is very close to a gigantic fire that's burning just thirty or so miles to the east of it. The city of Bastrop has basically been evacuated & much of the lovely Bastrop State Park has burned down.

Here's a terrifying video of some of the fire & how fast is spreads:



This site has maps of the fire & information about it. Two people have died. 38,000 acres have burned. 550 "structures" (I'm assuming that is some kind of weird euphemism for "homes) have been destroyed.

Friends in Austin - all of whom are safe, thankfully - report that the air smells like smoke, & that in some places there have been ashes coming from the sky. & of course there's this famous picture of the Austin skyline & the smoke to the east.

It's all terrifying, & all the more strange since it's been cold & rainy in Lexington the past week. I am very grateful for social media, which has allowed me to keep tabs on people without being a worry-wart & a buttinsky. Mostly I'm glad people I know are safe, as I am sad for the folks who had to be evacuated & who lost their homes. I take no pleasure in noting that most of them probably supported Rick Perry for governor, even as he cut funding for fire departments by 75%.

It's a Texas thing. You wouldn't understand.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Eleven

Are you tired of me being so negative about the unfunny A Joke A Day service? Do you wish that I'd just unsubscribe & go back to writing nonsense only vaguely related to my radio show? Do you understand that I am just talking to myself?

If you answered "meh" to any of the above questions, you're more eloquent than I thought.

This week actually had a joke that was told to me a long time ago by one of my nieces or nephews. Probably a nephew. Told poorly, but charmingly nonetheless. I give you, then, a pretty good children's joke as told by someone who submitted it to the A Joke A Day joke subscription service:

A panda bear walks into a bar & orders a sandwich. The waiter brings him the sandwich. The panda bear eats it, pulls out a pistol, kills the waiter, & gets up & starts to walk out. The bartender yells for him to stop. The panda bear asks, "What do you want?" The bartender replies, "First you come in here, order food, kill my waiter, then try to go without paying for your food." The panda bear turns around & says, "Hey! I'm a Panda. Look it up!" The bartender goes into the back room & looks up panda bear in the encyclopedia, which read: "Panda: a bear-like marsupial originating in Asian regions. Known largely for its stark black & white coloring. Eats shoots & leaves."

I corrected the misspellings in the joke. I remember there was a chick at KVRX whose email address was eats.shoots.and.leaves@whatever.com. She was not, to my best recollection, a panda.

Why does a bar have a set of encyclopedias?

A Day Of Labor Day Show

It's a Monday, it's a holiday, who am I to be contrary, why not do a Labor Day show about working? If I'm still on Mondays next year maybe not, but for right now, it seemed a good idea. & it's also appropriate that I, who don't work, should have to "work" on Labor Day.

So here are some songs for the beleaguered workers of the United States, & the world too, & although I mention it in the show, I want to share with you my favorite quote about work, from Andre Breton: "There is no use in being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life's meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work."

The show works in two parts, which are labelled helpfully part one & part two. What's in each part is listed below.

(part one)

"Welcome To The Working Week" The Methadones _21st Century Power Pop Riot_
"Working Man's Song" The Falcons _United Artists Doo-Wop Vol. 4_
"Work, Work, Work" Lee Dorsey _Ride Your Pony/Get Out Of My Life, Woman_
"I'm A Hard Workin' Man" Abner Jay _Swaunee Water & Cocaine Blues_

"The Work Song" Tommy Hunt _Dancing 'Til Dawn_
"Sixteen Tons" Tennessee Ernie Ford _Workers & The Workplace_
"Bracero" Phil Ochs _There But For Fortune_
"There Is Power In A Union" Utah Phillips & The Entertainment Workers IU 630, IWW _Don't Mourn, Organize! Songs Of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill_
"There Is Power In A Union" Billy Bragg _Talking With The Taxman About Poetry_

"I'll Do Anything But Work" Ray Charles _The Swingtime Records Story_
"You Won't Get Me Workin'" Symon Grace & Tuesday Blues _Quagmire Volume 3: Being A Compendium Of Olde-Time Killer Punk Selections From The 1960s_
"Work Is A Four-Letter Word" The Smiths _Girlfriend In A Coma_
"Working Man Is Proud Of A Job He Hates" Onion Radio News _Onion Radio News_
"Work Today" Lightning Love _November Birthday_

(part two)

"Never Work" Mekons _Retreat From Memphis_

"Go to Work You Jerk" Benny Bell _Go to Work You Jerk_
"Whistle While You Work" Louis Armstrong _Disney Songs The Satchmo Way_
"A Hard Day's Night" Peter Sellers _A Celebration Of Sellers_
"Housework" Carol Channing _Free To Be You & Me_
"Working In A Coal Mine" Devo _Pioneers That Were Scalped: The Anthology_
"The Worker" Fischer-Z _Word Salad_
"Work" Lou Reed & John Cale _Songs For Drella_

"You Gotta Go To Work" Rex Griffin _American Yodeling 1911-1946_
"Workin' Man Blues" Merle Haggard _Down Every Road: 1962 - 1994_
"Work" Spizz Energi _Spizz Not Dead: 1978-88 Decade Of Spizz History_
"Shift-Work" The Fall _Shift-Work_

Whither A Day Of Labor?

Since my show is now on Mondays - & since I hope it'll be on Mondays for a while - I have to get used to the preponderance of holidays that fall on Mondays. Memorial Day, President's Day, MLK Day - & of course Labor Day. So maybe it'll be a "regular feature" of the show that, on Labor Day, I do a work-related show.

This year, it's about work. That's all. You can hear the show on a day you may not have to work at 7:30 am tomorrow morning, on the FM dial at 88.1 in Lexington & the surrounding villas, & online at the WRFL web site everywhere & then some.

I'll archive it later at self help radio dot net because of course you'll sleep in. I don't get to, but you do.

Preface To A Day Of Labor: You Have To Work On Labor Day?

Hey, I'm not the only one. & really, Self Help Radio isn't really work. Have a look at this link: Ten People Who Have To Work On Labor Day.

No, it's not names like Betty, Benny & Bob. It's types of professions, like police, correctional officers, nurses, wastewater treatment plant operators, & air traffic controllers. You know who's not on that list? Convenience store workers. Fast food workers. Community radio station volunteers.

In fact, this article points out something you might not have known about those folks (well, not the radio volunteers - we do it for free):

For millions of workers, Labor Day is another day on the job... The law actually does not require employers to pay any wage premium when they force their employees to work on Labor Day, or any other national holiday. This means that many of the people grilling burgers at fast food restaurants, staffing the checkout counter at convenience stores, or cleaning the bathrooms in hotels, get the same hourly pay when they are forced to work on Labor Day, as they do any other day of the year.

They get no compensation whatsoever for being separated from their friends and family on a national holiday. According to data from the Labor Department, 25.5 million workers do not get any paid holiday time, meaning that they either get the holidays off without pay, or they are forced to work at their regular wage. Similarly, 22.2 million workers have no paid vacation at their job.

Some places do offer time & a half as an incentive for folks to work on Labor Day. WRFL, for example, gives me my regular hourly wage, which is nothing, plus two times that, & a pat on the back. But I have worked at shitty jobs - like in a video store & a gas station - & they paid me time & a half on holidays.

Not that they were nice guys - they simply knew no one would work if they didn't. But in those situations, I was just a kid who didn't really need the job. What if I did?

You should ask, if you visit a convenience store or a fast food jernt on Labor Day, if the folks are getting time & a half. Especially if you get the day off.

The Sickliest

There might be some irony in the fact that I did a Self Help Radio about sickness & then, a week later, caught a cold (*). While that is certainly some powerful cause & effect, it might also be that thousands of students from all over converged on Lexington & some of them brought viruses & germs with them from god-knows-where, & a small but significant portion of them came to the radio station & talked on the same microphone that I used on that Monday morning a week ago. In any event, I am fortunate I could take the time this week to goof out on Sudafed & make my mouth sticky with cough drops. I am feeling a little better today.

I can't remember the last time I had a cold, but I also don't remember sickness well. I remember getting a cold in Huntington over a year ago, because I just went to bed at that time until it went away. It also came right after a radio show, but it was at the end of the semester, not the beginning. It was a harder cold than this one, but I knew the proper treatment: take medication to make me sleep & wait until it went away. Anyway, I thought I'd use this blog as a place to mark when I get sick so I could see if I am declining in my old age.

So. I caught a cold August 30, 2011. I did not die.

I did manage to make dinner for my lovely wife last night - it was chili, it was awesome - but because of my sinuses laying on my face like an iron skillet, I couldn't taste anything. I did appreciate the texture & my tongue reported it was spicy. But that's all.

How did I know it was awesome? My wife told me so.

What, more Sudafed? If you insist. Zzzzzzzzzzz.

(*) I am thinking of doing a Self Help Radio about winning the lottery to test my radio show's power.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Ten

The A Joke A Day folks continued their incredible losing streak this week with more sexist jokes about wives loathing their husbands, with motorists trying to fool cops, with boring proto-Dilbert office-work-sucks style jokes, with "hilarious" children (they say the fuckiest things!), & with jokes written by comedians new to the planet. But this one struck me as peculiar, & although it is part of the A Joke A Day system, it feels more like it's supposed to be true, doesn't it?

Insurance Company

A Charlotte, North Carolina man, having purchased a case of rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against .... get this .... fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of fabulous cigars, and having yet to make a single premium payment on the policy, the man filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the man stated that he had lost the cigars in "a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in a normal fashion. The man sued ... and won!! In delivering his ruling, the judge stated that since the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable, and also guaranteed that it would insure the cigars against fire, without defining what it considered to be "unacceptable fire," it was obligated to compensate the insured for his loss. Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the judge's ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in "the fires." After the man cashed his check, however, the insurance company had him arrested... on 24 counts of arson! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used as evidence against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning the rare cigars and sentenced to 24 consecutive one year terms.

Needless to say, there's nothing true about this, & it appears to have actually started out as a joke, but made its way, through retelling online, into "urban legend" status. As the page at snopes.com explains:

As to whether there could be any truth to the legend's premise, insurance policies are generally written so that deliberate actions on the part of the policyholders cannot trigger payouts. Furthermore, destroying your own property isn't arson, as long as the act isn't intended to defraud anyone. If a court had already ruled that the insurance company was required to pay, then obviously no fraud was committed, and thus the burning could not be considered arson.

Not so funny now, eh, Mr. A Joke A Day?

As a bonus, I give you this week's Non-Joke. Oh, it looks like a joke. It even has a certain rhythm like a joke. But is it a joke? No! It's A Joke A Day!

A new miracle doctor was in town. He could cure anything and anybody, and everyone was amazed. Everyone except for Mr. Smith, the town’s grouch So Mr. Smith went to this 'miracle doctor' to prove that he wasn't anybody special. So he goes and tells the doctor, "Hey, doc, I have lost my sense of taste. I can't taste nothing', so what are you going to do?"
The doctor scratches his head and mumbles to himself a little, then tells Mr. Smith, "What you need is jar number 43."
Jar number 43? Mr. Smith wonders. So the doctor brings the jar and tells Mr. Smith to taste it. He tastes it and immediately spits it out, "This is gross!" he yells.
"I just restored your sense of taste Mr. Smith," says the doctor.
So Mr. Smith goes home very mad. One month later, Mr. Smith goes back to the doctor along with a new problem, "Doc," he starts, "I can't remember!"
Thinking he got the doctor, the doctor scratches his head and mumbles to himself a little and tells Mr. Smith, "What you need is jar number 43..."
Before the doctor finished his sentence, Mr. Smith fled the office.

More Indiepop! For You!

As you know, a long time ago, thinking I might live forever, I came up with the notion, thanks to the folks who maintain the band pages at TweeNet, that I could make a few nice radio shows playing indiepop bands from a to z. I decided to include bands they didn't, & also, just to make it interesting, some bands who I thought influenced indiepop in some way. Now, thirty-three episodes later, I am still on the letter G, & will die (I know it) before I get to the letter S.

Ah well. I think it's a lot of fun to research & try to be as complete as possible, & I hope it's fun to listen to. To get as much done as possible, I hijacked the freeform show that precedes Self Help Radio (which I also do), called Sugar Substitute, so I could play three hours of indiepop today, from Gentle Tuesday to the Gol Gappas. It's a lot of fun music.

The show is therefore in FOUR parts instead of two, since it's two shows divided in two. The entire show is at Self Help Radio dot net, of course, but the individual links are as follows:

Indiepop A To Z # 32, Part I
Indiepop A To Z # 32, Part II
Indiepop A To Z # 33, Part I
Indiepop A To Z # 33, Part II

What's in each section is below. Remember, the previous editions of Indiepop A To Z can be found on the Self Help Radio Archive page. In case you want to check my alphabetization skills.

Indiepop A To Z # 32 Part I

"I've Never Been So Poorly Insulted In My Life" Gentle Tuesday _I've Never Been So Poorly Insulted In All My Life 7"_
"Weathershow" The Gentle Waves _The Green Fields Of Foreverland_
"Fluid" The Gerbils _Are You Sleepy?_
"Color Vibration" The German Measles _A German Joke Is No Laughing Matter_

"Geek The Girl" Lisa Germano _Geek The Girl_
"I Like It" Gerry & The Pacemakers _The British Invasion: A History Of British Rock_
"Isolated" Ghost Society _The Back Of His Hands, Then The Palms_
"Painting By Numbers" The Gifted Children _Painting By Numbers 7"_
"Favourite Song" Gigantaur _LemonLime Volume 1_

"Alone At The Pier (with Rose Melberg)" Gigi _Maintenant_
"Renaissance Girl" Gilroy _Renaissance Girl_

Indiepop A To Z # 32 Part II

"Goldfish" Ginger Bottles _The Sound Of Leamington Spa Vol. 6_
"Frances & The Dancing Fairies" Girl Alliance _Summer In Berlin_
"The Soundtrack Of Your Life" A Girl Called Eddy _Tears All Over Town_

"Warm Around You" Girl Of My Best Friend _Warm Around You 7"_
"Circus" Girl Of The World _Wonderboy_
"Please Wait While We Try To Connect You" Girlboy Girl _Fresco_
"Smoke Ring Cool" Girlfrendo _So You Are Here Again, Shadow?_
"Lust For Life" Girls _Album_
"Never Enough" The Girls At Dawn _Never Enough_

"Getting Nowhere Fast" Girls At Our Best! _Pleasure_
"When You Cry" Girls Names _Dead To Me_

Indiepop A To Z # 33 Part I

"Ride My Star" The Girl With The Replaceable Head _Ride My Star EP_
"This Is Love" The Gist _This Is Love_
"It's Raining All Of The Time" The Git Shields _A Chance To Shine_

"Today... Please" Glaring Surge _Just For A Day_
"Paper Airplanes" The Glasses _Birdsongs, Beesongs: Eardrums Spring Compilation_
"No Reason" The Glee Club _Mine_
"Stars Above" Glo-Worm _Why Popstars Can't Dance_
"New York Boy" Gloss _New York Boy_

"Punish Me With Kisses" The Glove _Blue Sunshine_
"Streets Of Your Town" The Go-Betweens _16 Lovers Lane_
"Go Between's Gig" Go Go Charlton _Beaucoup Schlager_

Indiepop A To Z # 33 Part II

"Vacation" Go-Go's _Vacation_

"Flight Of Angels" Go Hole _Flight Of Angels_
"Listening To Marmalade" Go-Kart Mozart _Tearing Up The Album Charts_
"I'm Still Crying" Go Sailor _Go Sailor_
"Real Life" Go! Service _It Makes Me Realise EP_
"Your Back Yard" Go Team Throw: The Yoyo Studio Compilation_

"Funny Little Frog" God Help The Girl _God Help The Girl_
"We'll Keep Our Chains" Vic Godard _Long Term Side-Effect_
"Your Future" Godzuki _Your Future_
"Copycat" Going Stagg _Ocean Park Paradox! U.S. Pop Life Vol. 6: California_
"St. Lucy" Gol Gappas _Bellissimo! él Records The Singles_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 32?

Actually, it'll be Indiepop A To Z #s 32 & 33. I'm hijacking Sugar Substitute for just such an occasion.

Um, I might as well keep going, right? All those indiepop bands who've been waiting for me to get to them - their name starts with J, or N, or V. How can I stop now?

I'm still in the Gs. I'll still be in the Gs at the end of three hours. I may be in the "golds." But who knows? Not me.

You should listen. It's from 6 to 9am tomorrow morning (that's Monday) on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington. You can listen online at wrfl.fm in anywhere else. You can listen to previous episodes (Indiepop A To Gentle D) in the Self Help Radio Archive.

I promise not to talk about Happy Days anymore.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 32: Nothing At All About Indiepop

I will be continuing the Indiepop A To Z series this Monday morning - it'll be a special three-hour episode, encompassing both Self Help Radio & Sugar Substitute - but tonight from midnight to three am on WRFL Lexington (that's 88.1 on your fm dial in the city of Lexington & the surrounding horse farms) I'll be playing electronica like I used to do when I did Dickenbock Electronics. I miss that show. Oh well.

Tune in! You can listen everywhere & nowhere at all on the WRFL web site. You can listen to any show on WRFL there. It's pretty awesome.

I must go nap now. It'll be a long night.

I'm Going To Frankfort!

That's right! Tomorrow I will spend what I hope are not very many hours in lovely Frankfort, Kentucky, capital of the Commonwealth. I will be putting up posters in what I hope are friendly shop windows for WRFL's upcoming music festival called Boomslang. I hope I don't get shot!

If your destination is Frankfort, then you should visit the Visit Frankfort web site! For example, did you know that "West Frankfort has more of the family - sit down style restaurants where the whole family can find somet and much more to satisfy any craving."

(Is this strange & wonderful sounding "somet" a Kentucky delicacy? I can't wait to find out!)

What are some of these "sit down style restaurants" on the west side of Frankfort? They have exotic names like "Applebee's" & "Arby's" & "Burger King" & "Chili's" & "Sonic." I'm pretty excited about that!

Oh, the things I do for the radio station I love. Do you want me to send you a picture of me by the capitol rotunda?

(By the way, I've already been to Frankfurt, Germany, where my mother was born. I'm sure Frankfort is just as exciting.)

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Nine

It was the week of the weak A Joke A Day joke. I mean, for a mostly worthless daily dose of unfunny, you seriously can't beat the folks at A Joke A Day. But this week it was like they asked a group of groggy seven-year-olds to come up with the jokes. For example:

A duck walked into a bakery one day & asked for a pork chop.
The baker said, "We aren't a butcher; we don't sell meat here."
So the duck left.
The following day the duck went back & asked again.
This time the Baker said, "No, if you come here again I will nail your feet to the floor."
The following day the duck returned & asked, "Have you any nails?"
The baker replied, "No." & the duck said, "Well, I'll have two pork chops then."

If I honestly thought someone honestly thought it was funny, I might appreciate it. But it's really the sort of joke my friends & I would try to invent when we were in elementary school.

I mean, it's the sort of joke that you have to laugh after you've told it to cue everyone in on the fact that you've just told a joke.

The A Joke A Day people should find a way to incorporate a laugh track.

Bonus unfunny below!

A man goes to an optician asking for help about his shortsightedness.
The optician invites the man to go outside the shop, points to the sun & asks the man what that is. The man somewhat stunned replies obviously: that’s the sun! Thereafter the optician asks: but how far do you want to see?

Thereafter?

Sick Help Radio

Self Help Radio apologizes to anyone who tuned in to today's show, which was about sickness, & got sick. You must have been a first-time listener. Those who have listened to the show before are well aware that it can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, the sweats, itchiness, swelling, cracking, vague unease, stinkiness, changes in eye color, & opprobrium. & that's true with most any Self Help Radio show, not just today's episode about sickness.

The show today is not available in the pharmacy section of your local supermarket (nor your grocer's freezer), but instead is stocked on the shelves of self help radio dot net. It comes as a two-pack: the first half of the show is in this container & the second half is in this container. The contents of each half are listed below.

I don't imagine it would be safe to operate heavy machinery while listening to Self Help Radio but upon further consideration I don't think it would be unsafe, either. The heavy machinery may drown out the show!

(part one)

"Sick" Beatnik Filmstars _Laid Back & English_
"Sick" Boss Hogg _Boss Hogg_

"Dust Pneumonia Blues" Woody Guthrie _Some Folk_
"T.B. Blues" Jimmie Rodgers _The Singing Brakeman_
"High Fever Blues" Bukka White _The Complete Bukka White_
"Sickbed Blues" Skip James _Blues From The Delta_
"Cold Turkey" John Lennon _The Collection_

"Chills & Fever" Ronnie Love _Whip! Wobble & Grind! 1962-1964_
"Rocking Pneumonia & The Boogie Woogie Flu" Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns _Having A Good Time With Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns_
"I'm Sick Y'all" Otis Redding _The Otis Redding Story_

(part two)

"The Flu & Nyquil" Lewis Black _The White Album_
"Sick, Sober & Sorry" Johnny Bond _Johnny Bond's Best_

"Malaria" Shriekback _Oil & Gold_
"Stomach Flu" Todd Barry _Falling Off The Bone_
"Cancer Of Everything" Lisa Germano _Geek The Girl_
"In The Sanitorium" Momus _Tender Pervert_
"Still Ill" Smiths _Hatful Of Hollow_

"Touch Me I'm Sick" Mudhoney _March To Fuzz_
"So Sick" Unrest _Perfect Teeth_
"Robitusson" Chris Rock _Bigger & Blacker_
"The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn" The Pogues _Rum Sodomy & The Lash_
"I'm A Living Sickness" Calico Wall _Trash Box: Wild Psychotic Garage Punk!!!_

Whither Sickness?

I am not a sickly person, though I am not entirely a healthy person. My family seems about as medicated (if not more) as the average American, which is a damning statement. I take vitamins & iron to make sure my vegan lifestyle doesn't do me harm, & I take medication for what I am told is a genetic predisposition toward high blood pressure. I can't recall the last time I was really sick.

The wife tells me the last time I had a really bad cold was over a year ago, in the winter, in West Virginia. I seem to remember getting colds all the time in the summers in Texas, where I would constantly travel from 68 degrees indoors to 100+ temperatures outdoors, & back, all day long. I also remember having fewer colds when I was a smoker. But my memory is hazy, getting hazier over time. My brain rewrites constantly.

A show about sickness ought not be a celebration of sickness. We are a very sick world. This week's "Louie" had a riff about how American children eat candy-flavored medicine. I wish I had the ability Louis CK had to put things into perspective in that way. I guess I try. I know I don't do so well.

I'm almost afraid to invite you to the show, but, well, here we go: Self Help Radio's show about sickness will air tomorrow morning (Monday the 22nd) from 7:30 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm everywhere there's a world wide web. Later I will hang the finished product out to dry at self help radio dot net.

I did think it'd be funny if I got sick before the show & had to reschedule. But. That didn't happen.