Cancelled Halloween

Walking around the neighborhood tonight, I felt bad that I had assumed that Halloween would be cancelled this year because it almost certainly wasn't.  These are the things I observed on our late afternoon dogwalk:

1) People who prepared safe ways for kids to get treats, whether as simple as a bowl (with instructions to save some for others!) or as complex as a barrier, usually a table, with little goody bags for each trick-or-treater.

2) People who were having parties in their front or backyards, probably for neighbor kids, although I am always alarmed by the lack of masks.

3) People who prepared something out in front of their house, somewhat like a block party, but probably a kind of mixing of ways 1 & 2.

Perhaps I was too busy this week, or perhaps too lazy, but at some point either I or the wife decided we wouldn't take part in Halloween.  We would pull our window shades down & not turn the porch light on.

What we did do was go out for food - pizza & donuts - & what shocked me was the number of people - adults with children - in costume in the neighborhood.  Didn't they know Halloween was cancelled?!?

Or rather, didn't I know you just can't cancel Halloween?

So right now I am full of pizza & a giant donut feeling guilty about not even trying.  When we first moved into the house I talked about doing something spooky for Halloween.  I wouldn't have presumed to do such a thing this year.  & I don't think I would have anyway - but jeez, I could've had a bowl in front of the house or something.

Sigh.

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 8: The Dolphin Apartments

(image, as usual, from Google Maps)

In case you haven't been reading this blog - & why would you? - I've been taking some time each week looking through the internets to see if places I used to live are still standing, & sharing a picture of them, along with a story or two about my time there.  It's mostly a melancholy thing, & certainly it helps keep me from thinking about the current situation in my country, which is fucking awful.

In the fall of 1988 I shared an apartment with two people I thought of as friends.  In general, they didn't hold me in such high regard.  One thing that is true about me is that I am quite generous to people I consider friends.  For these two friends, who could not have afforded living in a three-bedroom apartment, I chose to rent a two-bedroom & give the two of them the bedrooms, while I lived in the (ahem) living room, with sheets acting as walls.  I didn't think twice about this arrangement, & neither did they, as far as I know.  When I think back on that time, I have no idea what their rooms looked like.  I don't think they ever invited me in.

That semester - the beginning of my third year of college - I fell in love.  So I spent a great deal of time with the woman, who didn't really love me & never would, but who for some reason kept me around - more on that in later installments - & also I had school.  One day I came home to the two roommates announcing to me that they were moving out.  I myself couldn't afford to live in a two-bedroom apartment on my own, & I explained to them that we had a lease, & there were penalties to breaking it.  They told me that was my problem - my name, you see, was on the lease.  That I didn't tell them to fuck all the way off & never spoke to them again says something about my demented sense of loyalty & the general manner in which I managed to never feel used as people used me time & again.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the apartment manager liked me - I had lived in the complex for two years, I never paid rent late, I was amiable - so she let me break the lease.  I was then faced with the daunting task of finding a place to live.  It turns out I am terrible at finding a place to live.  The apartment complex in which I was living I had been living in since I moved to Austin, & it was simple to move from place-to-place inside a complex.  They didn't have any apartments I could afford so I had to look elsewhere.

It turns out I was lucky that the woman I was courting let me use her car & I found a place on the other side of town.  These were the Dolphin Apartments, which I am not surprised to say are still called the Dolphin Apartments.  I like to tell people who live in Austin that I got an efficiency there in the fall of 1988 for 165$ a month.  I can't find information online but I suspect it costs more than a grand a month for the same place in 2020.

It was a tiny place, what they call a studio (the internet says 400 square feet), which was basically a room with a small kitchen in the front & a bathroom in the back.  I don't know if I thought I was living in a worse place than before, or if I was bothered by living alone, or even if I thought the place was filthy or whatever - it was on a bus route to campus & I was preoccupied by both the woman & school & really only thought of the place as somewhere to keep my stuff.  But over time, I became quite lonely there.

In the summer of 1989, I worked at a 7-11 at 15th & San Jacinto in Austin.  I worked the 11-7 shift, & had a ritual of taking a bus to campus & walking the short distance to the store.  In the morning, I'd do the opposite, although sometimes I'd take the bus from near the store to campus, since buses in Austin at the time ran early but didn't run late.  The days during that summer in that apartment - I was without the woman with whom I had at that time started a relationship, although who knows why she wanted to be in a relationship with me since she didn't love me & never would - she was home for the summer - were very long.  I would get home at nine, ten a.m., & I suppose have dinner.  Listen to music, maybe watch something I had videotaped.  I would sleep from noon to eight, the time when people lived their lives, & then get ready for work.  Nowadays I keep odd hours thanks to late-night radio shows, but I wasn't so used to it back then - & it would get worse when school started but I needed to keep the job because of unexpected bills.  That's a whole other story.

The manager was a "hip dude" who liked to come talk to me.  I found him uncomfortable, a little too old to pretend to be able to relate to me, & certainly inappropriate with women like my "girlfriend."  I believe he had a lava lamp in his apartment.  I have memories of needing to talk to him about something & standing uncomfortably outside his door while he talked to shirtless in his doorway.

Toward the end, I spent most of my time at my "girlfriend"'s place & so my little studio at Dolphin Apartments really did become a place to keep my stuff.  Although it turns out I did need a place to keep my stuff.  As I will explain in future installments.

Dang, I wish I could remember my address, my apartment number.  I have very few pictures from that time period.  But I believe I lived there from 1988 till probably early 1990.  It wasn't very long.  But I'm not sure I can be entirely exact.

Self Help Radio 102720: Halloween 2020 - Attack Of The Self Help Radio!

(See below for links to original images)

Last night/this morning on KBOO you could have heard two things that were the same thing, really.  One, my first regular episode of Self Help Radio; & two, the seventeenth Halloween show I've done on a specific theme.  The theme was "Attack Of The Self Help Radio" & you can look at the playlist below to see how many devious, evil, nefarious, irradiated, horrible creatures attacked during the show's three hour length.  It was a b-movie Halloween episode to be sure.

You can listen to the show in two places.  It is archived "as it happened" on the KBOO website.  This is a recording that starts around midnight & ends around 3am, & includes at the beginning spots for the station.  But if you'd like to listen to just the show from beginning (when the intro comes on) to end, you can do so at the Self Help Radio website.  It's the same show, of course.  The latter edits out the official KBOO stuff (sorry.)

If you listen at the Self Help Radio website, you'll need a username & a password.  Those are SHR & selfhelp.  The show was three hours long & there was a lot of music & talk.  I do my best to tell you what happened below.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween 2020: Attack Of The Self Help Radio!

"Attack Of The Creature" Skullduggery _Deficient In Vital Magnetism_

"Attack Of The Mole Men" The Dickies _Dawn Of The Dickies_

"The Attack Of The Giant Ants" Blondie _Blondie_

introduction + the Donation-O-Tron 2020 visits

"Attack Of The Fifty Foot Woman" The Tubes _The Completion Backward Principle_

"Attack Of The Radioactive Hamsters From A Planet Near Mars" Weird Al Yankovic _UHF Original Motion Picture Soundtrack & Other Stuff_

"UFO Attack (Live)" Asylum Street Spankers _Strawberry_

"Attack Of The Blue Meanies" The Dupont Circles _Will There Be Time For Tea?_

"Attack Of The Space Lolitas" The Lovejoys _A Taste Of Bongo_

our resident Cinephile presents Chuck's Happily Unsophisticated Cinema Korner

"Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes" Lewis Lee _Elvira Presents Haunted Hits_

"Attack Of The Giant Leeches" Half Japanese _Hear The Lions Roar_

"Attack Of The Mushroom People" Angry Samoans _STP Not LSD_

"Attacked By Monsters" Meat Puppets _Monsters_

"Attack Of The Giant Sloth" Chelsea P. Manders _Don't Tell My Dad_

interview with the Rev Dr Howard Gently

"Attack Of The Giant Jellyfish" Del Mar _After The Quake_

"Attack Of The Giant Lobster Man" Shock Therapy _Attack Of The Giant Lobster Man_

"Shark Attack" Surf Punks _Locals Only_

"Shark Attack" Tig Notaro _Good One_

"Shark Attack" The Goddamn Gentlemen _Sex-Caliber Horsepower_

interview with horror film auteur Pierre Peterson

"Flying Saucer Attack" The Rezillos _Can't Stand The Rezillos: The (Almost) Complete Rezillos_

"Asteroid Attack" Luna Vegas _Second Shot, Cuckoo Clock_

"Mars Attacks" Misfits _American Psycho_

"Mars Attacks" The Courtneys _II_

"Mars Attacks" Aesop Rock _Bazooka Tooth_

interview with "scream queen" Jean Margot

"Attack Of The Ghost Riders" The Raveonettes _Whip It On_

"Rat Attack" Deerhoof _Halfbird_

"Snake Attack" Anonymous _Corporate Food/Snake Attack 7"_

"Attacked By Snakes" The Aquabats _The Fury Of The Aquabats!_

"Attack Of The Super Vixens" The Creatures _Godzilla!_

a discussion of how many "Attack Of The" movies there are

"Attack Of The Giant Tapeworms" Doug Newman _Attack Of The Giant Tapeworms_

"Attack Of The Tarman" Dead Pleasures _Chorus Of Corpses_

"Attack Of The Zorch Men" The Meteors _In Heaven_

"Attack Of The Munchies" Tall Dwarfs _Sickie_

"Attack Of The Hair People" Jupiter Affect _The Restoration Of Culture After Genghis Khan_

conclusion & goodbye

"Attack Of The Alien Minds" Nikki St. George _The Tomorrow People (Original Television Music)_

"Attack Of Robot Atomico" The Ghastly Ones _A-Haunting We Will Go-Go_

"Attack Of The Killer Bees" Archers Of Loaf _All The Nations Airports_

"Attack El Robot! Attack!" Calexico _Feast Of Wire_

"Attack Of The Giant Killer Robot Spiders!" Pinch _Attack Of The Giant Killer Robot Spiders!_

"Attack Of The 60ft Lesbian Octopus" Does It Offend You, Yeah? _You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into_

The original images for the fake movie poster above came from these links:

https://gothamist.com/news/panicked-crowds-flee-times-square-after-motorcycle-backfires

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/274719645998988959/

https://www.moviepostershop.com/attack-of-the-crab-monsters-movie-poster-1957

http://zonailmupopuler-86.blogspot.com/2019/04/movie-ratings-png.html

Whither Halloween 2020 (Attack Of The Self Help Radio!)?

(Image from here.)

Oh boy!  Tonight there are two cool things happening!  One, it's Self Help Radio's debut on KBOO!  Two, it's our annual Halloween show, with the theme Attack Of The Self Help Radio!  As you might imagine, the show will feature songs & interviews all somehow involving something attacking - whether it's giant ants, or zombies, or flying saucers, or mutants, or giant leeches, or giant crabs, or giant jellyfish, or radioactive things, or things from another planet or galaxy, or monsters in general, or a monster in particular, or - well, you get the idea.  Don't you?

The show is on from midnight to 3am on 90.7 fm KBOO in Portland which is online everywhere at kboo.fm.  I'm pretty excited about it - I hope you will be too.  & don't worry, if you aren't awake, we'll attempt to broadcast into your dreams - & you can find us later on the Self Help Radio website.

Tonight!  At midnight!  This Halloween show is on the attack!

Preface To Halloween 2020: Isn't Life Enough Of A Horror?

There are many places on this blog where I recount all my Halloween themes & bemoan the fact that eventually I'll run out of them.  I've done Halloween shows about ghosts, vampires, monsters, zombies, witches, werewolves, haunted houses, graveyards, nightmares, hell, mummies, clowns, death, black cats, voodoo, & Frankenstein*.  It's only a matter of time until I start repeating myself.  But not this year!

But do we really need a Halloween this year?  Hasn't everything been horrible enough?  Halloween is on a Saturday night this year.  I remember when we were kids & Halloween happened on the weekend - I think it was on a Friday in 1981 & a Saturday in 1982 - but by then I had pretty much aged out of trick or treating.  Although I probably went, because, you know, candy.

Are there any guidelines for Halloween this year?  I don't think I want to hand out candy.  Should I be getting candy to hand out?  Have I even seen the candy displays at Costco or other stores?

In this sense I'm grateful this year's show is about horror movies.  Horror movies are forever.  There are probably horror movies about the coronavirus in production as we speak.  Hooray for horror films!

Boo for 2020!  I suspect it'll only get worse from here, however.  The year 2020 has replaced all my hope with nausea & dread.  As the disgraced Louis CK once said, "An optimist is someone who goes, 'Hey, maybe something nice will happen!' Why the fuck would anything nice ever happen?"

Boy did he demonstrate that in his own life!

* You can find most of them & even listen to them on the Self Help Radio Halloween page!

3500! (Also Some Big Changes!)

(Image from here.)

Holy shit, 3500 posts on this blog?!?  That seems highly improbable.  I'll bet it's a glitch.

Here's something that's not a glitch: Starting this week, Self Help Radio will be appearing exclusively on KBOO.  That means it'll air Tuesday mornings/Monday nights at midnight until 3am.  I have no idea how I'm going to fill the extra hour - do you have any ideas?  I feel like the show often outstays its welcome at two hours.  We'll see.  I'm still working on Tuesday's episode.

What will happen to the Dickenbock Report?  It's moving to Freeform in the old SHR slot, Mondays 8 to 10am.  I did the last DR on KBOO this week & you know the dumb joke of the show is that Dick Dickenbock, the titular host, never shows up & I'm stuck there - but I got texts of sympathy from folks who thought his absence was why the show was cancelled.  I mean, that's what I said, but I thought it was obvious that it was part of a schtick.  It wasn't!

That's the news: Self Help on KBOO, Dickenbock on Freeform.  It's really not that important in the big picture.  But I'm a little amazed it's happened.

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 8: Rolando Drive

(Image from Google Maps.)

This is a bittersweet one for me.  This is where my sister Pat lived from some time in the mid-1980s until her death in 2015.  I wrote about her after she died.  I miss her more than words can say.

This would be my last place of residence in Garland, Texas, & it was somewhat inadvertent.  I stayed mostly at the apartment in which I spent my high school years (which I talked about here) after my first year of college, but when I returned from my second year of college - & to this day I think I only came back because I thought I might spend the summer in Germany - about which more below - my mother had moved from that apartment for complicated reasons.  Or maybe not so complicated - the convenience store which her boyfriend owned was sold, the two of them wasted the money traveling for a year, & she had found herself unable to afford that place & needed to find another job & somewhere else to live.  She had done both, sometime before the summer I arrived, & I ended up spending it sleeping in the half-garage space my sister & brother-in-law converted at some point (the other half of the garage was my brother-in-law's "workshop").

My memories are telling me that my little brother lived in that space after he finished high school, but by the summer of 1988, he was living again with my mother in her one-bedroom apartment (I think the two of them slept in the same bedroom) & I was staying in my sister's half-garage.

My sister & I weren't friends then, & I spent the summer doing as little as I possibly could because I felt like I had been deceived about a trip to Germany.  I had written a pleading letter to my relatives, asking if they would let me stay there, I just needed them to get me a ticket, & I would work, & I would pay them back.  My German was pretty good - I had two years of college German in me & I was quite conversational.  I don't know this to be true, but I suspected that my mother stepped in & told them not to let me come.  Some things against this theory: my relatives in Germany weren't rich, & they might not have been able to afford a ticket for me.  I'll never know - they never wrote me back to respond to my request.  My mother instead told me it wouldn't happen.  She had told me that she didn't want me to go, not without her.  & I was angry about it, & bummed around the entire summer.

Most of the time I slept during the day, then went out at night.  I would listen to records on my Walkman as I wandered the deserted streets of Garland - & boy were they deserted.  I was especially fond on the Chameleons record Strange Times.  I felt isolated & disaffected & often thought about death.  I probably wrote a lot of terrible poetry.  My only friends were a fifteen-year-old girl for whom I made mix tapes, my college roommate William, & maybe a friend or two in Austin with whom I wrote letters.  I wrote lots of letters.  I didn't get a lot of letters back.

At the end of the summer I used a portion of my financial aid money to travel to Memphis to visit the only girl I had kissed at the time.  It was disastrous.  I came home even more broken-hearted & broken than before.  & I would move back into the Town Lake Apartments (as I discussed last week) at the beginning of my third year of school.  But I would never live in Garland ever again.

Later on, after other horrible interactions with my family, I became friends with my sister, & I would return to this house when I visited Garland - ostensibly to see my mother - but I always had more fun hanging out with my sister.  I loved sitting around her kitchen table talking about stuff - news, politics, gossip.  There was sometimes another family member there, & it would be the only time I would see them.

My brother-in-law sold this house a couple of years after my sister died.  He has remarried & he no longer lives in Texas.  He actually unfriended me on Facebook a couple of years ago although I thought we had a good relationship.  I have texted him a couple of times - it's been a while now, the last I think was when I sent condolences after his father died - but he doesn't speak to me anymore & in fact he doesn't even speak to his son.  He has a granddaughter now, which he's seen only twice.  It's a real sadness.

Mostly it's wistful to see this house.  I mowed that lawn many times.  I endured countless unpleasant family gatherings in its backyard.  I went to Christmases there, sometimes walking from my mother's apartment when I was staying with her for the holidays - my mother's apartment was a quarter-mile down the street.  I ate meals there, I listened to records on headphones there, I played Super Mario Brothers there.  I was there when the call came from my Uncle Harold that my father had died.  I had terrible fights there, & more than once I swore I'd never return.

Now of course I never will.

Self Help Radio 101920: Swoon

(Original image here.)

Does music make you swoon?  What about music about swooning?  God lord, what will make you swoon?  Because all I got here is a radio show about swoon.

Detractors might say - not that Self Help Radio has detractors - but wow! can you imagine? Wouldn't it be awesome if the show had actual detractors! Anyway - hypothetically - detractors might say that swooning isn't necessarily something that can be objectively elicited.  One person's swoon is another person's shoulder shrug.  Still, perhaps a preponderance of swoon might actually result in a swoon; ergo, two hours of music & talk about swoon.

It's there for your scientific investigation at the Self Help Radio web page.  Please make sure you're sitting down or maybe that there's someone to catch you should you swoon.  You'll need a username (SHR) & a password (selfhelp) to listen.  Also maybe some smelling salts?  A cup of hot tea?  A cold compress?  Preview what happens on the show below.

Alas, I must myself lie down now.

Self Help Radio Swoon Show

"Swoon" Antenna _(For Now)_

"Swoon" The Mission _Neverland_

"Swoon" Tanya Donelly _Sliding & Diving EP_

introduction & definitions

"Swoon" Cape Snow _Cape Snow_

"Swoon" Big Deal _Lights Out_

"Swoon" Magic Potion _Endless Graffiti_

"Swoon" February _Tomorrow Is Today_

a patented Self Help Radio Music Analysis Ned Dry & Major McCheese interrupt!

"Swoon" The Deer _Do No Harm_

"Swoon" Fujiya & Miyagi _EP2_

"Swoon" The Chemical Brothers _Further_

"Swoon" Rising Appalachia & The Human Experience _Soul Vision_

"Swoon" The Lovebullies _When I Get Through With You_

interview with SWOON founder Mickey Parnell

"Permanent Swoon" Gee Mr Tracy _Harmony! Rhapsody! Destiny!_

"Swooner" Beliefs _Leaper_

"Swoon" Imogen Heap _Ellipse_

"Swoon Units" Digable Planets _Reachin' (A New Refutation Of Time & Space)_

interview with professional swooner Charlie Charles

"Venus Loon" Marc Bolan & T.Rex _Zinc Alloy & The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow_

"Volumes" The Church _Remote Luxury_

"Public Pervert" Interpol _Antics_

"Won't Want For Love (Margaret In The Taiga)" The Decemberists _The Hazards Of Love_

conclusion, big news, goodbye

"A Fistful Of Swoon" Vandaveer _Divide & Conquer_

"Swoon" Whirr _Around_

Whither Swoon?

(Image from here.)

Gosh, I wish I were a swooner!  You'd think I would be - I'm unhealthily sentimental & I become way over-involved in works of art like movies & songs.  Oh I faint - as I talked about yesterday - but the fainting wasn't because of beauty or being lovestruck.  I wasn't swooning.

Perhaps one can learn to swoon?  Perhaps one can pick up the finer points of swooning through a radio program about swooning?  Let's see if that works.

Tomorrow morning - Monday the 19th - from 8 to 10am, Self Help Radio features a show about "swoon."  If you are in town, you can listen to it on 90.3 & 98.3 fm; it's online everywhere of course at freeformportland.org.

Will it make you swoon?  Well, I hope so.  I hope it makes me swoon.  But I'll probably not be so lucky.

Preface To Swoon: A Short History Of Fainting

This is true: I am a fainter.  I faint.  I am not sure why I faint but I do.

The first time I remember fainting was in sixth grade health class.  We were talking about intravenous drugs.  I passed out.  I had been focusing on putting a needle in my arm & my brain short-circuited.  This happened again in eighth grade.  I apparently collapsed in health class again & caused a stir.  I was taken to the school nurse.

You probably haven't read much Dostoyevsky but one of the things he talks about, since he was epileptic, is the profound peace one feels in an epileptic fit.  I am not epileptic so I can't speak to that, but as someone who had fainted many times, I can tell you that in the strange state of unconsciousness within the faint, it's extraordinarily peaceful.  It's like a dream of calm.  When consciousness comes to bring you back, you go in protest.  Waking up from a faint is a violent thing.

In my first or second semester of college, I fainted in a large psychology class.  The professor was talking about the brain, & - these were pre-computer days - he had a transparency on the overhead projector which simulated the layers of the brain.  As he went deeper, lifting each transparency to reveal things underneath, I felt that my brain was being peeled open, & I fainted.  I woke to a frat boy type slapping my face saying in a whisper - because the professor was lecturing - "Dude, wake up.  Are you okay, dude?"

Your eyes stay open when you faint.  Did you know that?

Cataloging my faints would be tedious.  I fainted just last year because of a drug situation that I won't go into.  I will say that once I learned my particular symptoms of a possible faint, I learned how to waylay it - usually by putting my head between my legs so my brain didn't lose blood or oxygen.

If I could change anything about myself, well, that's a long list, but one of those things would be that I would be able to turn myself off like a machine.  I had a friend who told me of a boy she was dating who would say, "I'm going to sleep now," & then fall asleep.  I was envious of him.  Imagine being able to initiate sleep mode so readily!

Swooning is not, however, merely fainting.  I can't say if I've ever actually swooned.  Let me think about that.  I've fainted, oh how I've fainted.  But swooned?  Hm.  I don't know.

What To Do With News Of News

So... there's some news about Self Help Radio that I'd like to share.  & in a sense, I've already shared.  Y'see, I have to record Self Help Radio to air Monday mornings & it has to be turned in early so someone can "screen" it (or "clear" it) in case I go on some kind of potty mouth rant.  Which, to be fair, is always likely no matter how long I've done radio.

& on the show, which I finished today, I shared the news, so it feels like I've already told you.  But of course you won't hear it until Monday morning - during the last airbreak! - & you probably won't listen to the show at all.  So you won't ever hear the news unless I tell you here.

But something tells me to wait.  Something also tells me to eat whatever's in the refrigerator right now.  I can ignore the latter voice, so I could ignore the former.  But the voice telling me to wait is very different from the voice telling me to be a colossal pig, & in fact I wish the voice telling me to wait to share the news would also tell me to just eat when I'm hungry.  So I'm inclined the trust the more prudent of voices.

Do you mind waiting?  We can talk Monday.  As usual, I'm making a bigger deal about this than it really is.  But I can't wait to tell you!  I'm excited.  But I have to wait.

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 7: Town Lake Circle

(Image from Google Maps.)

This place no longer exists.  This is taken from Google images from 2007.  As of January of 2020, it looked like this:

(ditto)

What happened to the apartments?  They were gone by 2008, as far as I can tell, & nothing has been put in their place.

For the life of me I can't recall what they were called - maybe Town Lake Apartments?  The street I looked out onto was Elmont, but officially the address was Town Lake Circle.  I moved in with school friends Paul & Todd in 1986, lived there till the summer of 1987, when I returned to Garland.  I lived in a smaller apartment toward the back with another school friend William in my sophomore year of college, roughly August 1987 to May 1988, & lived again with William & yet another friend, Joe, in a two-bedroom apartment (I lived in the living room) from around August of 1988 till December of 1988, when William & Joe decided to move out, leaving me with a place I couldn't afford.  Luckily, I had been a good tenant, & the landlord let me break the lease.

These apartments were in an area that used to be called "the Riverside student ghetto."  They were far from campus, maybe six miles away.  I used to take a bus to classes - which went onto I-35 past the lake through downtown - & it took around ten to fifteen minutes to get to UT; nowadays I'm sure it takes twice as long, or worse if the traffic is bad.

Down the street was a venue called "The Back Room."  It was apparently mostly a space for metal shows, but I have fond memories of seeing Love & Rockets, the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Sugarcubes, James, & gosh probably other shows there.  Here's an article about the place.  It's apparently now where Emo's, once a downtown club (where I also saw too many shows to count), now exists.

There was also a supermarket within walking distance, & I remember my roommate Paul & I had a brief fling with tennis while we lived there - there was a tennis court down the road.  Alas, Paul got better & better at the game, while I plateaued at "somewhat mediocre," & Paul was very competitive.  & as people who suck at sports know, it's never much fun to play with people who are better than you are if they love to win.  You end up just asking to be humiliated.

One amusing story is that I had a longstanding obsession with a girl who lived in the apartments who had purple hair.  I would refer to her to friends as "the purple-haired girl," inviting comparisons with Charlie Brown & his "little red haired girl."  She lived with a boyfriend, & I would never have had the courage to speak to her, so I would sit on the bus, listening to the Birthday Party on my Walkman, & daydream about getting to know her.  Years later, as fate would have it, we became somewhat acquainted, &, alas, she wasn't a very interesting person.  Her name was Leanne.  I think after we hung out once or twice we realized we didn't really have much in common.

At some point I'll get to the years 1986 through 1988 in my birthday series so I'll have more to say about this place.  Once I moved away from this part of the world, I never really went back - my home range, such as it was, shifted to the Hyde Park area of Austin after this.  But in 2017, my wife & I visited Austin for what would be the very last time & there was a food truck that we went to there, & the whole area seemed utterly strange to me.  I guess I noticed the apartments were gone.  We did walk the dogs down by Town Lake & I kinda wished that I had had a dog when I lived there - I really wish I had spent more time down by the lake.

Today I was talking to a friend who had lived in Austin in the 90s & we chatted about different areas of the city.  I lived there for more than twenty years & really didn't see a whole lot of the city.  It's a shame, really - it was a big place, expansive, & the time to get to know it was then, when it was still a somewhat sleepy little town.  Now it may be entirely unknowable.

Self Help Radio 101220: Traps

(Original image here.)

You see, I was caught in a trap.  I couldn't walk out.  Because I was doing a radio show, baby.  & here it is!

You're thinking, I never thought of radio as a trap!  You are correct to do so.  Whom would radio want to trap?  Radio is the opposite of a trap - it sets you free.  It sets music free.  It sets voices free.

Does this make a radio show about traps ironic?  Hardly.  Because radio often finds itself sending messages that are contradictory, ironic, moronic, etc.  That's often inadvertent - for example, this radio show can often be so incredibly dumb but also astonishingly un-self-aware.  Why would it broadcast dumb things?  Alas, not knowingly!

Am I done asking questions & answering them as if something actually cares about this nonsense?  I am!

You can listen to this week's Self Help Radio which is presented exactly as it aired Monday morning on Freeform Portland by visiting the Self Help Radio web site.  Please remember: username SHR, password selfhelp.  The show was just me & songs, so all you need to know is the songs that were played, & they are listed below.

Don't worry!  The show is entirely trap & release this week!

Self Help Radio Traps Show

"Trap" The Pop Group _We Are Time_

"Trap" Robert Fripp & The League Of Gentlemen _God Save The King_

"Trap" The Cure _Wild Mood Swings_

introduction & definitions

"Suspicious Minds" Mark James _You Heard It Here First!_

"Trapped In Amber" The Clean _Anthology_

"Siamese Trap" Opal _Happy Nightmare, Baby_

"Set A Little Trap" Phyllis Hyman _Forever With You_

"Keep Your Fly-Trap Closed" Jimmy McLain _Swingin' The Blues: 1931-1939_

another airbreak

"The Trapper & The Furrier" Regina Spektor _Remember Us To Life_

"Trapped By A Thing Called Love" Denise LaSalle _Trapped By A Thing Called Love_

"I Trap You" Kae Tempest _The Book Of Traps & Lessons_

"Trapped Love" The Cramps _Flamejob_

"Black Light Trap" Shriekback _Big Night Music_

yet another airbreak

"Trap Door" Stars _No One Is Lost_

"Bear In A Trap" Her Royal Harness _The Hunting Room_

"Party Trap" Tacocat _NVM_

"Mantrap" Thee Headcoats _Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats! (Already)_

"Traps" New Musik _Anywhere_

really? another airbreak?

"Trapped" Chastity Belt _Time To Go Home_

"Trapped In A Love Affair" Brenda Holloway _A Cellarful Of Motown!_

"Trapped" Kenneth Williams & Roderick Cook _Share My Lettuce (A Nixa Original Cast Recording)_

"Trapped In Paradise" Bill Baird _Diamond Eyepatch_

"Trapped" Underworld & Iggy Pop _Teatime Dub Encounters_

conclusion & goodbye

"Love Is The Tender Trap" Frank Sinatra _The Capitol Years_

"The World Was A Trap" The Crooner _Sounds From The Valley Of Love_

"I'm Like A Ship Trapped Inside A Bottle" The Cavalcade _Many Moons_

"Still We Fall (Into The Same Trap)" Eggplant _Anorak Twat_

Whither Traps?

(image from the Wikipedia page about trapping)

Look.  I know you feel trapped.  Everyone does.  Trapped inside because of the pandemic.  Trapped by the fucked-up institutions that are letting a minority control our country & topple it into fascism.  Trapped by the love you feel for family, close friends, lovers, pets.  Everything's a trap.  There's no way to get entirely free.  At some point (to really strain the metaphor) you're going to even gnaw some part of yourself off just to try to get away.

Don't do that!  Why not just kinda accept it & listen to a radio show about traps?  It's easier to deal with being triggered if you pull the trigger yourself.  Hey, look at me, acting all self-helpy & shit.  I have no experience or training in counseling as you well know but I have been doing a show called "Self Help Radio" for eighteen years now.  I think that should count for something!

Enjoy the bait that got you into the trap in the first place.  & listen to Self Help Radio's show about traps, which will air tomorrow (Monday) morning from 8-10am on Freeform Portland.  You can listen in town at 90.3 & 98.3 fm & everywhere at freeformportland.org.  Maybe knowing it's a trap will make you feel a bit smarter when you fall for it?

Preface To Traps: Kind Of Apologies

When I left KOOP in 2008, I left without needing to take a break or a sabbatical or really ever relinquishing the many tasks I volunteered for.  I remember proudly saying to someone, "I never burned out."  Which is true.  There are people who needed to recharge after being so involved, & there were people who left & never came back.  Technically, I left & never came back, but I was moving away, so I couldn't come back, not without great expense.

Just the other day, in reference to my current work, someone told me they didn't want me to burn out.  "I don't burn out," I said.

No, I guess I don't.  I just get tired.  There are so many things I could be doing to help out that I have to say no to because I am programming three radio shows a week.  I was doing this earlier in the year, of course, but there is something different about going to a station to do a show.  Even when I am doing a show from home, I'm working on it till the last possible minute.  Frankly I think broadcasting from home brings out my worst procrastinating tendencies.

Which is a kind of long-winded way of saying I opted out of the bells & whistles for this week's Self Help Radio.  I usually put a good deal of work into the show - interviews & what-not - although recording it adds more time - but I just didn't have the energy this week.  The show's in the can, it'll be on the air on Monday morning - you'll understand what I mean when you hear it.

What I could have done was take a week off - although it probably wouldn't have resulted in me catching up in any meaningful way - but instead I just simply made a radio show a bit like Self Help Radio used to be - although without a lot of research.

In sum, I owe you an apology.  Even if you don't listen, I owe you an apology.  Even if you don't think I owe you an apology, I owe you an apology.  I owe myself an apology too.  That's the trouble with setting a standard for one's radio show.  It just feels ugly to not meet it.  & Self Help Radio has such low standards to begin with!

So - sorry.  Sorry for this week's half-assed show.  I am hoping my Thursday morning gig will be done soon, & I'll have more time to spend on other things - including Self Help Radio.

Related question: am I burnt out?  Is being tired all the time burnt out?

Need I Remind You

Soon enough I'll be done subbing so many shows on KBOO (I hope) because they've recently sent out a call for show proposals, but nowabouts is a good time to remind you that even though I don't archive my KBOO shows - subs shows & the Dickenbock Report - on the Self Help Radio website, I do link to where they are archived, which is on the KBOO website.

These shows are done live by remote, which is fraught with all sorts of technical issues, which might make for challenging listening, but should you want to, you can go to the following pages to hear episodes of programs I currently do on KBOO:

The Dickenbock Report

The Sub Show

The Dickenbock Report is a lot like Self Help Radio, the Sub Show is a lot like my freeform shows, except I mainly play new releases.

That's all.  Nothing much to see here.  Move along.

Photographs Of Places I've Lived # 6: Cranford Drive

(image from Google Maps)

This is the place I lived in for most of the time I was in high school.  I returned to stay here for the summer of 1987, after my first year of college.  & I returned here again after my second year of college, although my mother was soon to be moving out of it.  That's a long story.  It is, for all intents & purposes, the last place I lived in in Garland.  Although that's a little arguable.

It was built I believe in 1982, & we were the first family to occupy apartment # 1.  I had to share a room again with my little brother, but he spent a great deal of time at our oldest sister's place, so often I was by myself.  I had my first kiss in this house, with a girl named Heather on the floor after we watched a movie - I think it might have been St. Elmo's Fire.  I also had long conversations on the phone with friends & strangers in this house, & I embarrassed myself more times than I can remember.  I was deeply into both comics & records in this house - I bought my first stereo, from money I earned at a summer job, when I lived here, & I had a decent record collection by the time I went to college in August 1986.

It was just a block away from the convenience store owned by my mother's boyfriend, who (not coincidentally) moved into apartment # 5, across the little driveway from our front door.  I'm sure he helped my mother pay the deposit & also probably paid a portion of the rent - my mother kind of had him wrapped around her finger.  As I mentioned last week, we had been living with him until his drinking drove my mother away.

We didn't move from that house to this apartment, though.  We spent a few weeks - I'm not sure how many - sleeping on the floor at my sister Pat's house.  I am not entirely sure where it was.  I don't have an address & none of the places I looked at on Google Maps looked familiar - it's been over thirty-five years after all.  I turned 15 in my sister's house, & at the time she was very pregnant - she gave birth to my nephew Josh while we were living there.  Once he was brought home, we had to go.

It's worth noting that we returned to the area where I lived from basically the age of four to the age of nine.  & Little Brook Apartments was also on Cranford, just a couple hundred feet to the west.  So by 1986 I had lived a quarter or so of my life on Cranford Drive.

Since my mother has gone, I have no reason to visit Garland anymore, but when I used to - mainly when I visited from Austin or from Kentucky - I would sometimes drive down Cranford Drive.  It's a little rougher neighborhood than when I lived there - or so I've read.  I have walked, ridden my bike, & driven up & down that street more times than I could count.  & yet I can't feel terribly sentimental about this place.  Maybe I did before, & repeated pilgrimages back have diminished its power somewhat.  Or maybe I am just not as sentimental as I used to be.

There's one story about this place - I don't know if I mentioned it before - I was downstairs one night & heard a crash from upstairs.  I rushed up & went into my mother's bedroom.  Her ceiling fan seemed to be going crazy, & her dog Kalijah was a bit freaked out.  It turns out one of the blades had broken off & flew across the room.  I turned the fan off & made sure she was all right - she had slept through the commotion.  It could have hurt her, maybe even hurt her badly.  It could have gone through her window - that's the one that faced front on the second floor in the picture above.  She barely acknowledged me & went back to sleep, although I'm sure we talked about it the next day - she had to get a new ceiling fan.  Or did she ever get a new ceiling fan?

Years later I asked her about this, & she had no memory of it.  She may have thought I was making it up.  But nope!

Self Help Radio 100520: Lions Revisited (The 18th Anniversary Show)

(Original image here.)

Eighteen years is a long time.  I should know!  I waited eighteen years before I got a kiss.  & Self Help Radio has waited eighteen years for someone to actually like it!  I suppose if I could wait that long for a kiss, the show can wait a little longer to find a listener.

Still, it was a pleasant anniversary show.  Almost everyone stopped by to wish happy thoughts!  There was even a surprise phone call.  What there wasn't was cold hard cash.  We could've used the cash.  This whiskey does not buy itself.  I suppose I should also say something about lions.  We had plenty of songs about lions.  No lion actually came on the show, however.  They were all "busy."  "Self-quarantining," they explained.  Dudes, the virus doesn't affect lions!  Just say you didn't want to come on the show!  My feelings are always hurt, you don't have to spare them!

Listen to the anniversary festivities at the Self Help Radio website.  Please remember SHR & selfhelp - those are the username & password respectively.  There were exactly two hours' worth of lions, & they went like it says below.

Eighteen years!  The show better register to vote!

Self Help Radio Lions Revisited Show

"Lions" Poptone _Poptone_

"Lions" Tristen _Sneaker Waves_

"Lions" Jamaican Jazz Orchestra _Encounters_

introduction + a blast from the past

"Sign Of The Lion" Tony Joe White _The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings_

"Le Lion Est Mort Ce Soir" Nancy Holloway _Portrait 1961-1974_

"Don't Go In The Lion's Cage Tonight" Homer & Jethro _Ooh, That's Corny_

"A Lion's Heart" The Tallest Man On Earth _The Wild Hunt_

"The Lion & The Teacup" Bishop Allen _Grrr..._

interview with ex-lion tamer Birdy Southworth

"Lion Tamer" Clinic _Bubblegum_

"Lion's Den" The Lower 48 _The Lower 48_

"Snarling Mama Lion" Judd _The Fantastic Story Of Mark Wirtz & The Teenage Opera_

"Mr Lion" Marmalade _Reflections Of The Marmalade (The Anthology)_

"It Comes In Like A Lion" Julia Lee & Her Boy Friends _Kansas City Blues 1944-1949_

interview with the Rev Dr Howard Gently

"Joe The Lion" Momus _Turpsycore_

"Last Lion Of Albion" Neko Case _Hell-On_

"The Lion For Real" Allen Ginsberg _The Lion For Real_

"Throw Me To The Lions" The Pernice Brothers _Spread The Feeling_

"Hear The Lions Roar" Half Japanese _Hear The Lions Roar_

an eighteenth anniversary surprise! Alyssa & Jason call

"Don't Wake The Lion" The Itals _Early Recordings 1971-1979_

"The Lion" Duke Mitchell _Gimme Dat Harp Boy! (Roots Of The Captain)_

"The Lion & Albert" Stanley Holloway _The Best Of Stanley Holloway_

"He Roars Like A Lion" Merline Johnson _The Yas Yas Girl 1937-1947_

"Fed To The Lions" The Luyas _Human Voicing_

conclusion & goodbye

"Watch Out For Lions" The Terrible Twos _Jerzy The Giant_

"I Can Tame Lions" Beatnik Filmstars _Boss Disque_

"I'm A Very Friendly Lion Called Parsley" Luke Haines _Adventures In Dementia - A Micro Opera_

"Jungle Lion" Lee Perry & The Upsetters _Funky Kingston (Reggae Dance Floor Grooves 1968-74)_

Whither Lions Revisited?

(Image from here.)

Self Help Radio began, more or less officially, on Wednesday, October 9, 2002, on 91.7 fm KOOP Austin.  I've probably told this story before but I'm too lazy to look it up, so I'll tell it again.  Initially I was given a show at 9am on Friday mornings.  I kinda preferred the time.  It let me get into work a little late but I could also stay late.  I did a few shows on Friday morning - maybe two? - & in fact they did have themes - one of them was weekends, which I later also did as a theme on Self Help Radio - but then one afternoon I got a call from someone at KOOP named Danny who told me his story of woe.

Danny had recently gotten a show on Wednesdays at 2pm.  The thing is, he was taking vacation time from work to do the show, & it would eventually run out.  He only worked half days on Friday (he told me), so Friday mornings would be better for him.  I knew I could easily skip out of work in the middle of the day (I already cleared it with my boss) so it was no big deal, & far be it for me to be selfish about something as silly as a timeslot.  We switched times - though we had to go to a Programming Committee meeting to sell it.  To sweeten the deal, I also volunteered to oversee the show before mine, from 1-2pm, which would be an hour for new deejays to demonstrate what kind of show they wanted to do.  (In the early days, when we were just starting, there would often not be a new deejay, so I would do two hours.  In fact, my first show that Wednesday was a sub show - it was songs which said hello.  I don't count that as Self Help Radio's first episode, however.)

It seems like I was on Wednesdays forever, but I think I had moved to Fridays by 2006, so for less than four years.  I kind of wish I had been moved to Wednesday afternoons instead of Fridays, but I thought I would enjoy an end-of-the-week show.  Eventually Danny moved to Sunday nights.  Both of us left Austin, maybe even around the same time, & I think he's still doing radio where he ended up.  As am I.  I'll bet he wouldn't recognize me if he saw me again, though.  I'm pretty forgettable.

Always a sentimental sort, I started doing these anniversary shows in 2008.  The show was barely four years old!  It seemed a nice way to commemorate the project.  By then I suppose I figured I'd be doing the show for a while, but in the first two years, I wasn't sure I'd be doing Self Help Radio for any great length of time.  It was like a new relationship - who the hell knows how long it'll last?  Two dates?  A year?  But it seems I'm stuck with this show.  Which is fine.  We sometimes don't like each other, but we know each other tolerably well.

For some reason I felt like I had more to say about this anniversary stuff.  I don't, actually.  I am revisiting a theme that I first explored in March of 2005.  As usual, I won't play any of the stuff from the first show - although there'll be covers of songs previously played.  I actually have a recording of the original show, & I listened to some of it, & it didn't make me sad.  Maybe because there's a part of me that doesn't think the show sounds like me.  If that makes any sense.

Tomorrow - Monday morning - 8 to 10am - Freeform Portland - freeformportland.org - listen & celebrate eighteen years of this foolish pastime of mine.  I really never thought it would last as long as it has.

Preface To Lions Revisited: Oops

Even though it has been properly noted on the website that Monday's show will be the eighteenth anniversary show, & even though I've mentioned here & elsewhere that at least seven people voted to determine that the theme I'd revisit would be lions, on the show last week I said the theme would be "traps."  Of course that will be the theme a week from Monday.  I brought Admiral Ackbar on last week & utterly wasted him.  Sorry.

Yes, eighteen years.  It's a wonder it's lasted this long.  I will have some thoughts about that tomorrow.