Preface To Gary's Favorite Electronica 2006: Beep Beep Beep Beep

People who are still talking to me often ask me why I separate "electronica" from "other music" when I do my "best of" (now called "favorite") shows of the year. The main answer for this is because I hardly ever play electronica on my show during the year, & I listen to a lot of electronica. But I can talk more about that tomorrow.

I don't have Attention Deficit Disorder but sometimes when I am typing, my eyes get hung up on a word. For example, the word "separate" up there. I know I spelled it right, but suddenly, after writing it, I was reminded that, when I was in 6th or 7th grade, & some mean English teacher corrected my misspelling of the word, it occured to me that there should be different rules for that word based on pronunciation. So, if you were going to use it meaning "apart," as in "separate beds," the regular spelling should apply; but if you were going to use the verb form, as in, "We were separated at birth," it should be spelled with an e instead of an a at the second vowel: seperate. Besides, it's how most people spell it anyway.

Nowadays when I write it like "seperate," it looks completely wrong. Thinking of how my 6th or 7th grade mind works, I think I was trying to make the spelling conform to the pronunciation, but I was a syllable too early - it should have been separete & separate.

That has nothing to do with electronica, it was just on my mind. I am perhaps too easily distracted, & the "anything goes" nature of this "blog" format makes it easy to go off on tangents. For example, I just realized I am using a lot of quotation marks in this entry, when normally I might italicize something to make a point - so I'd put the previous sentence this way: I am perhaps too easily distracted, & the anything goes nature of this blog format makes it easy to go off on tangents.

No, I was right to use quotation marks. Italics are not conveying the meaning I intend. Which also reminds me, a friend of mine who is otherwise rational-minded & relatively sane started sending me emails with emoticons in them. Out of the blue. Like he'd just discovered them. What's up with that? How long have humans been writing email back & forth? Surely he's seen an emoticon before. Maybe he's just being ironic. I hate it when he does that. I'd prefer him to be contrarian. He's a snob anyway.

This post was going to be a grand history or electronica, stretching back to the days when it was invented by ancient Greek sailors hanging out in North Africa with drum machines & synthesizers, back with Socrates was the hottest deejay in Athens, then moving on to the renaissance of Italian house with Galileo & his fucked-up rave culture, when kids would star into the sun for hours, & finally making some incredibly poignany comments about how, when the robots finally destroy us, human-made electronica would be as meaningless to them as whalesong is to us. I had a lot of this planned, & some great works to cite (including long passages from Shakespeare's "Dance Motherfucker Dance"), but I got distracted. I'm sorry.

Maybe I'll talk more tomorrow?

Magda's Birthday Haiku Wrap-Up

Well, Magda's birthday came & went, & another weekend was spent in the slammer, & I have two new tattoos given to me by strangers while I was out cold. One of them is a picture of Magda appearing to bite the area of my body where the tattoo is, & the other is a picture of a pretty young man which those in the gay club scene refer to as a "twink." The funny thing is, I didn't have any alcohol at Magda's party, but she is fond of drugging me & putting me in places (usually naked) where hilarity may ensue. That's why I love her!

Alas, no one wrote any birthday haikus, so I had to solicit entries from my children, who wrote haikus for their mother below. I must point out that the second-place winner did NOT follow the rules correctly, so the judges, who also happened to be the writers, were not given any treats during the weekend.

FIRST PLACE: Bolan

If it’s your birthday
& you have any cake left
You will give it me.

THIRD PLACE: Buster

I hate birthday cake
Unless it’s made from carrots
Ice cream on it too.

SECOND PLACE; Ringo

Cake, ice cream, whatever
Just leave food unattended
So I get to pick

FIRST PLACE: George

Shut up, everyone!
It’s mommy’s birthday today!
Show her you love her!

This week's show will be my favorite electronic music of the year, & if you would like to write a haiku about it, you just have to go here.

Birthdays are hazardous to my health, I think.

After A Week Off, I Start Answering Your Letters Again

I'm so sorry I didn't answer your letters last week, but, in accordance with the McCain-Schickelgrüber Thanksgiving Correspondence Bill of 2002, I was legally unable to answer any mail on the national day of thanks. My apologies to those of you who wrote to ask about my delicious recipe for cranberry tofurkey scramble. Maybe next year!

Today's letter comes from Taylor, who says he's an "old friend from the good old days" (even though I don't recognize the name & I've never had good days, not now, not before), & he writes:

Gary,
Good to hear you on the radio! We always thought your meth habit would lead you into a darker future - maybe working at a car dealership or something. The entire family appreciates the show, especially when it isn't on.
I gotta ask, though - what the hell do you have on the people at your radio station who give out shows? Aren't there laws against bribery or coercion? Is this something the FCC handles? Because no one in their right mind believes you got your show on its merits.

Actually, Taylor, the FCC has no rules governing the ways a person gets on the radio. My radio station, KOOP, is different than most commercial radio stations in that, unlike, say, a Clear Channel radio station, you don't have to have your blood drained & your personality re-programmed by a robot before you get a show.

But I find your slanderous comments more offensive to KOOP than to me. I feel the same way when people give my girlfriend pitying stares when they see us together. Obviously, no one out there can see the real me. Or, in your case, hear the real me. Except the radio station I love & the woman I shack up with. They both hear & see me just fine. & I'm all right with that, especially if they don't find out the other exists. Because then I would be in trouble of sitcom-like preportions.

Thanks for writing! If you'd like me to respond to an email, write me one!

Whither A Birthday Show For Magda?

Seriously, just because I have a radio show, should I be able to give my own girlfriend a special birthday show? What the fuck is up with that? What if [insert irate listener name here] wants to do a show about my girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse/partner/lover/special animal friend's birthday, but they can't because they don't have a radio show? Does that seem fair?

Does this really make anyone mad, or am I simply reacting as I might react (since I am self-important & irritable) if I were listening to a radio show where the dude on the air was playing songs for his girlfriend's birthday? I dunno, but if I were the guy I am imaginging that I am writing about, I'd probably stop reading this blog right now & go read snarky comments about superhero Hostess ads of the 70s. Then I'd feel a lot better.

But wait! my more observant listener will note. Gary, didn't you already do a birthday show for your girlfriend a couple of years ago? & maybe also before that in 2002? Are you just going to play the same damn songs you played then? Didn't you once say something like, "There are so many themes that I'll never have to return to the same ones ever!"

The answers are: yes, no, & probably. There'll be a whole new slew of birthday songs for the discriminating birthday music listener. & not just songs about my girlfriend's birthday - it could be about anyone's birthday. & I'm doing it because the day happens to be her birthday. What the hell sort of boyfriend do you imagine I'd be if I didn't do a radio show for her on her birthday? Do you not want me to get laid again ever? Besides, I've been doing this "Self Help Radio" show for over four years now. You know how much I drink. I could very well be forgetting a previous theme. As I age, I'll repeat myself, like the old often do.

Sometimes to humorous effect.

Preface To Magda's Birthday Show: Who Is Magda? Why Does She Get A Show?

I'll invite you to take a little trip into the past. Nearly twenty-eight years, in fact - were you even born then? I was a mere ten years old, & had already had my heart broken & my teeth knocked out. But I am not travelling back to my past - I'd be more embarrassed than anything to meet myself - but to a past I never saw nor knew.

It's December 1st, 1978. The President of the United States is a space alien named Nell Carter, & the number one show on television is a Korean War high school comedy called "Welcome Back, M*A*S*H." In California, space aliens are slowly prying the state away from the San Andreas Fault & tipping it into the sea, causing a former governor named Reginald Reagan to promise he'll stop the aliens if he becomes President. & in a Bay Area hospital, a woman with the unlikely name of Barbara Muchlinski is giving birth to a space alien who will be called Magdalena.

Or was she? We're travelling back in time because the space alien named Magda, who happens to live with me & oftentimes makes me dinner & yells at me about my drinking, this space alien is a liar. She cannot be believed. She's told me the most ridiculous stories, from unbelievable tales about how whiskers help monkeys evolve to meeting David Bowie in Prague & helping him inflate his bicycle tires. Yes, this space alien, whom I love dearly, cannot be trusted. She is a fountain of untruth, prevarication, tall tale, fable, falsehood, statistics & damned lies.

So we travel back in time - we go to the hospital where she was supposedly born, to see for ourselves. We must do this, alas, with our imagination, since time travel is patent pending, but we can certainly trust it more than the words of the space alien I love. Because she can't tell the truth. In fact, I'm not entirely sure she's a space alien. For example, she cannot mind meld. She doesn't speak a space alien language, & she hardly ever gets collect calls from Alpha Centauri. & the ones she gets she insists are wrong numbers.

On our trip back in time, then, we need to examine her ridiculous claims, to prove or disprove them with the most ridiculous facts we can find. Here are some questions we'll need to ask ourselves:

- Where were space aliens usually born in the Bay Area in the late 1970s? Were they allowed to be in human-oriented hospitals?
- Was she born during an earthquake, when it would have been easy for a space alien baby to change places with a human baby? If so, is the real Magdalena Muchlinski living on the third planet around Sirius playing high-stakes poker & smoking like a chimney?
- Was her mother, Barbara, who is charming & very human, an accomplice or an unknowing vessel for space alien seed? Can we discover if her other children are aliens, or if they are hybrids?
- If we make bets in the past & win because of future knowledge, can we take the money into the future? Or does money from 1978 look like Monopoly money today?
- If we were born after 1978, can we stop our parents from meeting & see if we cease to exist? If we cease to exist, will we therefore be unable to stop our parents from meeting, & then begin to exist again? Will it become a cycle that never stops, & will those of us watching find it fucking hilarious?

Let's travel back in time, & return tomorrow, & report what we discover!

Dysfunctional Family Holiday Haiku Wrap-Up

Man, what the hell happened last week? I know it was a holday week, but I was totally lame with the whole posting on the blog thing. My bad. My really bad. I don't know what was going on.

But in addition to subbing the Lounge Show & Virtual Noise, I managed to do Self Help Radio with the usual flair & grace. & kind listeners wrote weird haikus for the show, which I will share with you now. These are the winners, from fourth place to first:

FOURTH PLACE: Buddy

Vegetarian
At the Thanksgiving dinner
Waiting for the pie.

THIRD PLACE: Louise

Mommy I’m sorry
The store took my fake ID
I can’t buy your beer

SECOND PLACE; Nancy

I was wrong to lock
My brother in the closet
From third to fifth grade

FIRST PLACE: Jesus

There’s no family
That doesn’t screw with your head
Your entire life

This week's show will be a birthday show because it happens to fall on the birthday of my beloved, whose name (really!) is Magda. So if you want to write a haiku for Magda, or a haiku for birthdays, then most assuredly you can do so by clicking here. She'll appreciate it.

Also, Friday's show - most of it - is now available on the Self Help Radio show archive page. Listen to it away from your family.

I do say "most of it" because the first few minutes didn't get recorded due to a screw up with the station's recording device. It's my fauly, really, so I should just say "user error." My apologies to completists & to the folks who made the music that you won't get to hear if you missed it live. Sigh.

Whither Dysfunctional Family Circus?

Whatever happened to those Dysfunctional Family Circus cartoons, anyway?

Oh, they're right here: http://dfc.furr.org/.

They sure were amusing the first time I saw them - but then, they weren't set up like a Mad Magazine "fill in the blank" thing - someone had hand-picked the best completely incorrect lines to put under the Bil Keane pictures. Sigh.

Those cartoons were in no way an inspiration for the show this Friday - they were just a handy name. No, the inspiration for the show is the fact that the holidays are here, & from now till the end of the year some if not all of us will have to spend time with other families. Most of the time, we don't like our families, or at the very least we don't like some of our families. I know people who get downright snarly when I say such things - I fuckin' love my family & I'd fuckin' die for them! - but I assume they're the members of the family that are the unliked ones, so they are the cause of the unhappiness, & therefore I am not writing this to them or about them. As I was saying, we who are honest with ourselves have issues with some or all of our family's members, & because of this, I thought I'd do a show about screwed-up families.

I've been wanting to do this show for a while, actually - the season just gave me an excuse. Which is ironical, because I won't be around my family during this vacation. I'll be here in town, not eating turkey, & preparing three radio shows - in addition to Self Help Radio, I'll be doing Virtual Noise (Friday at 11am) & the Lounge Show (Saturday at 10am).

Self Help Radio should be disturbing for the whole family this week. So do tune in. & if you want to hear last Friday's show, it's available at Self Help Radio archives.

Have a good holiday weekend!

Preface to 'Dysfunctional Family Circus': Hey, Wait A Second, What The Hell, You Haven't Posted Anything To This Blog In Like A Week

I know, I know.

I am in an awkward position here. I write a blog about a radio show that, though unbelievably good, no one listens to, & consequently, there's this blog that I keep which no one reads. (Actually, one person has stumbled onto it. This person did a search on Google for "Wonder Woman's bodice," & I actually referred to that as something that is yellow in my post about my yellow show. Sorry dude.) But I suppose one day some archaeologist of "community radio" might stumble upon this blog, you know, & I'd hate to think he/she (because in the future, we'll be both genders at the same time) thought I was a slacker.

& it's certainly not that I don't have anything to say. I can make shit up at the drop of a hat. I can make shit up ABOUT the drop of a hat. But it's just that I need a little time, you know, to myself, you know, naked, you know, in a pool of warm rubbing alcohol, you know, to write something of value. You know.

Yesterday totally slipped past me. Today was stolen by a medical emergency involving my girlfriend, a bike, a bum knee, a bum's knee, someone who kneed a bum, a group of people who need bums for their own nefarious political purposes, a self-important opthamologist who thought he was a kinesiologist, an oversexed duck named Elixir, & my own desire to find an easier way home than the one I currently take. Now it's late, & I'm certain I have a lot to say about a radio show about fucked-up family relationships, & it'd be topical, since the United States are fleeing home for Thanksgiving.

But instead, I'm lame. I'm sorry, Mr/Ms Archaeologist. I'm sure someone on a station with less wattage kept a really cool blog in northern California. If you can't find the link here, then, I'm sorry. That must be computer code rot.

I Am Still Answering Your Letters!

It's Thursday - the day before my show - & so, I am answering your letters yet again. Please remember that I am an open sort of fellow who is never offended by free inquiry unless it's about my body, of which I am ashamed. So feel free to send me an email, & my address is slug at mail dot utexas dot edu.

Today's letter is from Tony, who writes me in all small letters:

i am not familiar with your show but i have a question for you. this is writing because of serious issues with the teaching of socalled science in the classroom. do you or have you ever think that it's good idea to tell lies to your children with the goverment money? if you have time to discuss this on your show i am available at the following times at the numbers below. i have spent many years researching this very issue of social import and would gladly discuss it on your show with you. thank you.

Tony will not be on my show tomorrow, alas, because his email does contain a hint of trouble, if not an entire spray can of trouble about to be opened upon the children of America like so much processed cheese spread.

Damn right, Tony, I have an issue with the teaching of socalled science in the classroom. My friend, I have a problem with the teaching of anything of the socalled variety, be it socalled math, socalled history, & especially socalled home economics, which (I have found) is neither economical nor homely.

Your concern heartens me, mainly because I see just the opposite of what you say each & every day - everyone is more concerned with that which is socalled, rather than that which is. We go to socalled work, we eat socalled lunch, we read the socalled newspaper, we make love to our socalled spouses (unless we're socalled gay, in which case we can't make love to our socalled spouses because it would destroy the institution of socalled marriage). It scares me, you know, that these things we do are socalled, but who exactly is calling them so? Is it me? Is it you?

Do write me back & we'll see about having you on the show. Or maybe we can just schedule you to be on socalled Self Help Radio, & at this point we'll have vanished into socalled irony & so be available for download on the socalled internet. There! That was easy! Thank you, Tony.

Keep those letters coming! I may even answer them!

Whither Trouble?

I have a friend, who's really not much of a friend, because this friend's kind of a critic, but not a critic in the good way, you know, nothing constructive, just a lot of sniping & grumbling, usually beginning with comments about how fat I sound on the air, & getting more personal & irrelevant as time goes by, but occasionally, when I am least expecting it, this friend'll say something that is mean & lowdown & cutting, but it turns out to be something quite apt. So this friend said to me, today, when asking me what my show's theme would be this week, & I answered, "Trouble," my friend said, "Aw, man, that's a gimme ain't it?"

What my friend meant, of course, was that it was an "easy" theme. There are bound to be millions of songs with the word "trouble" in the title, even if they don't mention trouble or talk about particular kinds of trouble. The Allmusic Guide lists 524 songs called "Trouble," & even if a lot of them are covers or repeated versions, that's surely at the most conservative fifty (50!) songs called "Trouble." There are hundreds of other songs with "trouble" in them, songs with names like "Boy Trouble," "Car Trouble," "Testicle Trouble" & "The Trouble With Tribbles." & this doesn't count songs about trouble in which "trouble" is not mentioned in the title.

My friend expected me to defend it with something like, "Au contraire, ass pirate, I picked this theme because of a particular meaning of the word 'trouble' as it applied to a recent experience of mine of great import, like quitting smoking or being beat up by the checkout person at the CVS pharmacy because I accidentally called it an Eckerd's." This friend, so used to my thin skin & my irritability to the typical lame-ass poking & prodding, expected me to bust out the etymology of the word or some alternate meaning that only I & a few other weenies who like that sort of thing would know. My friend wanted me to disagree on the more fundamental of levels, angrily, vehemently, an argument worthy of Plato or, if my friend were completely baked (as is usual), some second-generation Tarantino dialogue.

Instead, I agreed. What else could I say? I chose "trouble" as a theme precisely because it'd be simple to find songs to fit. I mean, my previous show was songs about staring. That was fucking hard. Sometimes I need a gimme. You know?

Of course, that meant that I did have to stumble through some five hours of music this weekend, & more still today. So it wasn't nearly as easy as I'd hoped, which turns out to always be the case with "easy" themes. A show about the sun will always have more songs than a show about Alpha Centauri, but you still have to listen to a million songs about the sun before you find the perfect ninety minutes.

Tune in Friday - I'll have ninety perfect minutes of trouble. It's not quite the gimme my friend thought it would be, but it'll be good nonetheless.

Preface To Trouble: I Didn't See Nothin' Officer

This week, Self Help Radio is in trouble. Or is it that trouble is on the radio? I am sitting here talking to one of the students who works for me about Henry David Thoreau, while I am writing this, so instead of writing stuff & nonsense, I think I'll try to write down some of my favorite Thoreau quotes. Like this one:

I love a broad margin to my life.

But having said that, Thoreau had his own fair share of trouble in his life. First of all, he was apparently an ugly cuss. As Nathanial Hawthorne noted:

He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and rustic, though courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior.

His brother, who was also a friends, died of tetanus when they were both young men. He also spent time in jail (famously). Some might say that these troubles helped him become a better person, but then you might start sounding like some kind of creepy spiritual person who believes that suffering increases one's character. Or, as Batman once said famously:

Hunger is good for the soul.

None of this, perhaps, has anything to do with trouble, nor with why I want to do a show about trouble. Perhaps I am attracted to the negative in this world, & perhaps I like to spook the superstitious with shows that they may see as lightning rods for unhappiness. Maybe one day I'll rate my show themes & find out if there are more "minuses" than "plusses." But tomorrow I'll tell you what troubled me so that I will make a show about trouble.

Meanwhile, you can go here to listen to last Friday's show.

Staring Haiku Wrap-Up

It was uncomfortable on Self Help Radio last Friday, seeing as everyone's eyes were on me. I just couldn't help feeling exposed & scrutinized. Luckily, others felt the same - & shared their haikus with us. Here are the winners.

FOURTH PLACE: David

Cable news networks
Bloated, ego-filled train wrecks
Can’t avert my eyes!

THIRD PLACE: Julie-Ann

Don’t stare at the sun!
It’ll burn your retinas!
Look at me instead!

SECOND PLACE; Simon

Though he can’t see me
Behind the two-way mirror
I still feel his gaze

FIRST PLACE: Phyllis

Listen, friend Blinky
You can watch me all you want
But you cannot touch

This week's show is all about trouble, & you might be in trouble if you don't write a haiku for the trouble show. So do it now.

It's Okay To Stare

Today's show (which begins in less than two hours - shit, I need to pick some stuff out) has been supplemented by wonderful musics created for Self Help Radio, or at least with Self Help Radio in mind. Or maybe with Self Help Radio as an afterthought. What are they?

There's a strangely non-danceable intro from Austin's own CJ Buchanan. Since Rick Perry's reelection, he's been busy teaching the governor how to use Instant Messenger to communicate with teenagers, but he's taking time out of his busy schedule to make an intro that will have you "Staring." (Ha! I've always wanted to do that. I don't know why. It's kinda awkward. It also doesn't make any sense. Maybe if I were talking about a movie? Who knows?)

Secondly, Dallas' own the Ramonalisas recruited also Dallas' own Rahim Quazi to make a song about staring called "I Went To The Store To Buy A Box Of Bread But Returned With A Volleyball Card Collection." Or maybe it's just called "Staring." It's quite lovely. Believe it.

Thirdly, the mysterious musical duo called the Licorice Whips weigh in with a sugary tune called "Voyeurism Is The New Tattoo." While it's probably too deep a thought for me (I still haven't figured out what those posters with the cute cat attached to a branch with the big letters "HANG IN THERE!" above it means), it sure is a wonderful song.

So there are three unique reasons to listen to Self Help Radio today at 4:30 on KOOP, online at koop.org. That's too much, you don't really deserve more. But if you want more...

Well, there will be haikus. I'll talk about the "male gaze." I'll also continue with the new feature I started last week at a listener's request, the Self Help Radio Self Help Minute. Finally! One minute of self help during Self Help Radio.

Tune in! You won't be sorry!

I Continue To Answer Your Letters!

It's Thursday, so it's time to see what you, dear listener, have to ask me. This email came only moments ago, from Barney. He writes:

Dear Dude,
You were on the Elk Show today and you talked alot about some benefit this weekend. I looked all over and couldnt find nothing about it. Whats the skinny?

It may seem awful strange for me to get an email which is so amazingly timed to a KOOP benefit at which I am deejaying, but I am told that that sort of serendipity happens all the time in the blogworld. Who knew?

Yes, there is a benefit this Saturday, the 1st Annual KOOP East Austin Rock Marathon, which is happening from 4pm till 1am at a cozy little space called Red's Scoot Inn, which is located at 1308 East 4th Street, at the corner of 4th & Navasota. In addition to me spinning some tunes in-between the bands, there are bands playing in-between me spinning tunes. Those bands are:

Moonlight Towers
Andrew Duplantis & The Unfaithfuls
Slowtrain
Summer Wardrobe
The Nay Says
iKill CaRS
Youngmond Grand
Crawling With Kings

There is information at koop.org, but the interesting thing is it says this about me:

Plus KOOP's own Self Help Gary selecting tunes to a "theme," between sets.

I'm sure the only theme will be to keep you entertained between sets. Although do not rule out songs about me needing a cigarette. I've written over a dozen of them since I quit smoking nine days ago. & they all rule!

The benefit should have something for everyone, so please come out. It's for a good cause. & thank you, Barney, for your timely email!

Whither Staring?

I am not good with eye contact. I don't make it, is what I mean. I generally avoid looking in people's eyes, for whatever reason. In fact, one of the benefits (of which there are many) of delicious alcohol & its delicious effect on a person is that, when quite deep in the cups, it's very easy to maintain eye contact, because if you let your eyes wander, the room may start spinning. I can easily hold someone's eyes in mine when I am way too drunk to dare look away.

Which begs the question: why a show about staring?

I think first we must recognize that a lot of staring takes place far from the object of the stare, whether across a crowded room (or club, or bar), or across the street, or from behind a curtain (or peephole, or tinted windshield), or through binoculars, or a two-way mirror, or simply in a crowd. & the object of the stare need not be another human - it could be the wall, the sun, the ground - or parts of yourself (your hands) or your entire self, if you're staring at a mirror. & the stare need not be sustained for some length of time before it become a stare. A stare is a stare. Even if it's a glance or a look. Even if it's a glazed marathon of a stare. A stare is a look is a peek is a gaze.

We're always staring, whether it's at a computer we're writing on, or a passive television that's telling us how the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives. I find I can't help but stare at people who are walking or biking or running past my house. I also find that I am more than likely to return a stare if I catch someone staring at me on the bus. I'll also return a smile, & look away, if they smile at me.

"Stare" is a fun word, & it's safe to say that not all the songs I'll play Friday will mention that word, but will mention some aspect of staring, be it looking, watching, peeping, ogling, gazing, etc. According to the OED, it's a totally German word that infiltrated the English language early on, & of course I now have the image of drunk German people staring me down during Oktoberfest. Speaking of, we have a weird game associated with staring, don't we? A "staring contest" is a kind of psychic war of wills wherein the first person to blink their eyes loses.

A show about staring I hope will celebrate this solitary practice which we all partake in in some manner or other, sometimes naughtily, sometimes innocently. It's something we do with only the voice in our heads to keep us company, because the spell is nearly always broken with questions like "What're you looking at?" & comments like "Stop staring at me!" Think of that while you're listening to the show - a stare is a personal thing, & very rarely is the stare in any way explicable outside of the one whose eyes are doing the work.

This Friday, you'll want to stare all afternoon long at Self Help Radio.

Preface to Staring: What?

I find this amusing. I didn't write a preface to staring today because I've been staring at the election results all night.

Also, it's officially a week since I quit smoking. Never quit smoking during an election. That's my advice to you.

Not that I've buckled - it's just been hard.

Tomorrow: why a show about staring?

Party Haiku Wrap-Up

My apprentice Erin's most excellent "Party" show is available now for listening in a podcast-sized mp3 file or two over on the Self Help Radio homepage. It's especially fun because I have a party horn. I like to blow the party horn.

Erin also solicited for haikus for the show, & so, here are her haikus she solicited:

FOURTH PLACE: Mishaal

The keg is floated
and we're all out of whippets
so let's get naked

THIRD PLACE: Leslie

Good wine and hookahs
unabashed hedonism
now that's a party

SECOND PLACE: Kevin

Top-notch party
Morning dew covers the stranger
Naked on the front lawn

(Please note: this haiku is NOT in the standard style. It therefore shouldn't have won second place. I have filed a protest with the International Committee for Haiku Regulation. Erin will be hearing from my lawyer!)

FIRST PLACE: Wendy

and then he took me
kisses in a dark hallway
our private party

Congrats to all the winners, including the sneaky one. This week's theme is "staring." Stare at this page until you feel compelled to write a haiku.

Self Help Radio Today! Parties!

Today on Self Help Radio:

* Self-satisfied radio personality "Self Help" Gary cedes content control to his apprentice, "Erin" (last name unknown). Rumors about the transfer of control abound, not the least of which is that Gary has apparently "quit smoking" & "needs a little time to freak out."

* Erin's choice of show theme: "parties." Discussion on the street is that Erin's been to every "it" party that's been hosted this season. Many famous political figures & local celebrities are afraid Erin was at a particular party wherein a playful partygoer took a lot of pictures with her cell phone. Governor Rick Perry, a regular attendee of "it" parties, has particularly been waiting for incriminating photos to come out before Tuesday's election (if they don't, he won't have to come out before Tuesday's election). Does Erin have these photos? Will she reveal secrets on today's show?

* For the seven-hundred-&-fourth show in a row, haikus will be read. Nearly two thousand Austinites per decade enter the famous Self Help Radio haiku contest & this Friday's show is no different. In that, there's a contest, & haikus. The Self Help Radio web site has a page about the haiku contest, if you care. No link, though. Find it yourself.

* Surprises? Would it be a surprise if you knew there'd be surprises? Or are you so jaded that expecting a surprise would only make you feel there's no surprise, so a surprise would truly surprise you? If so, I'm surprised you feel that way. If not, well, no surprise there. But it could be surprising if there were a surprise today on Self Help Radio & you in turn felt truly surprised. So if there's a surprise, I'm not telling. It would spoil the surprise.

Self Help Radio, 4:30 to 6:00 pm today on 91.7 fm KOOP Austin. Theme: parties. Live online at KOOP.org.

I Answer Your Letters - Again!

Ah yes, it's Thursday, so it's time once again to dip into the Self Help Radio eMailbag & look what you, the devoted listener - or you, the misguided stalker - or you, the person to whom I owe money - have written to me, the minor programmer at the small though amazing community radio station.

This letter comes from Maureen, who says she lives "a block or two over." But from whom? From everyone? Maureen is a transdimensional freak! She writes:

Gary,
As someone who's watched your career on radio since you went on that student station back in the 90's, I have to laugh when you mention you have a girlfriend. First I've seen you. Second who'd want to be your girlfriend. Third it's not nice to lie, altho you lie all the time and are proud of it. Forth I think it's time you told the truth about your sexuality and your lies.

Wow, that's an intense email. Maureen, since you live close to me, I'll assume you hear me sobbing right now. I am sobbing miserably because - how else can I put this? - you hit the nail on the head. You see, not only am I an abject failure as a blogger, I am also a liar whose sexuality - which is to say, whose absence of sexuality - I've dedicated my life to obfuscating, if not out & out distorting.

God, it feels so good to tell the truth. Having to pay a woman to be my "girlfriend" (not to mention having to pay three cats & two dogs to be my "pets") was really causing a lot of financial distress. Because of my minor celebrity status, I have been putting off the expensive surgery that I've wanted since 1994, which is basically a sexuality implant. Back then, of course, it was dangerous, but ironically, my years of subterfuge & deception let me wait out the technology - & now, not only is a sexuality transplant surgery actually quite safe & affordable, but it's also now available in two flavors - homosexual & bisexual. My choices ten years ago were nowhere near this amazing.

Also, I can finally quit pretending I'm a smoker. God that was embarrassing. Especially to my lungs.

Thank you, Maureen. I feel so good now I want to have a party. So listen to Self Help Radio tomorrow, & party with me. & the rest of Austin. & if you'd like to send me an email (not you, Maureen - the rest of Austin), you can click here to send it!

Whither Parties?

This week's show, as advertized on television & in the national print media, will have as its carefully-chosen theme "Parties." While November is hardly known as the month for parties, it might make a lot of sense, this choice of a theme, once it's explained. Unfortunately, I don't know why this subject is the theme for Friday's show. I don't know because I didn't choose it. My apprentice, Erin, did.

KOOP has a six-month training process for interested folks who want to get involved in Austin's best radio station. One aspect of the training is apprenticeship. At the beginning of the current training cycle, Erin was assigned to my show. She's been a lot of fun & only occasionally does she show up completely coked up & demanding her own dressing room. Since she's been so great, I thought, hey, give her a day. Let her choose the music & talk the talk for a day. Take a day off. Find something more interesting to do, like giving blood or quitting smoking.

So you'll have to ask Erin why the subject is parties, because I don't know & I haven't asked her. Partially because I really never know why I come up with the themes I do, so I don't want her to have to lie to me. & partly because, not knowing what's she's thinking, I can speculate:

1) She's a party girl. Duh.

2) It's a complicated pun based on the fact that it's election season, & elections are choices of candidates between "parties."

3) She went to a marvellous Halloween party this weekend, dressed, as she was on my show, as Barney the Purple Dinosaur, & everyone was there, & she had such a good time, & this show is just her playing all the great songs she heard at the party & oh my god she's going to tell us all about it.

4) She went to a dreadful party recently, one of a long list of mundane, criminally dull parties where she had to stand around & listen to the same old people talk & watch the same old drunkards embarrass themselves, & that was that, that's the last boring motherfucking party she's going to go to, & this show will be a searing indictment of the Austin "party culture" which wastes time, money, good booze & lives.

5) She's recently committed a crime & she's now the "guilty party." Or maybe she thinks my show is a crime & she's now "party" to the illegal act.

6) She knows I never get invited to parties & so she's totally taunting me - as someone who goes to all the great parties - & will reduce me, on the air, to tears.

Which is it? Is it all of them? None of them? Three of them? You'll have to listen Friday to find out.

Halloween Show!

Hey all!

Last Friday's Halloween show has been digitized & put online just in time for Halloween night. Please visit:

http://www.selfhelpradio.net/archive.html

It's at the top of the page. Happy Halloween!

Halloween Haiku Wrap-Up

I am sorry to say that I probably won't have my Halloween show (from last Friday) digitized by tomorrow night. Alas! A couple of listeners called to ask, since (apparently) my voice is scary & will frighten children. I recommend another show, perhaps? Or maybe last year's Halloween show?

But the ghouls chose to write haikus for the Halloween show, & here are the four winners:

FOURTH PLACE: Eleanor Reynolds

I guess I must be
What people call a monster
Since I have green fur

THIRD PLACE: Paul

On this Halloween
Don’t dress as something fiendish
You’ll look too normal

SECOND PLACE: Cecelia

Just like Godzilla
I hate models of Tokyo
I want to stomp them.

FIRST PLACE: Federico

If monsters scare you
I suggest you make a change:
Don’t re-elect them

You know the drill. This week's show is about parties. You can write a haiku for that show or any other show, really, if you want. You know you want. You big baby.

I Answer Your Letters!

As an incredibly obscure & virtually unknown minor programmer on a small community radio station in Austin, Texas, you can bet I receive more mail than princesses or death-row artists. So I thought that, for a regular Thursday feature (well, it's Friday morning now, but I haven't had time to write today, & anyway, who's paying attention but me? nyah), I'd answer the mail that I receive. Feel free to write me with your pressing questions about me, my show, my meshow, my showme, or my meshowshowme. Clicking here will allow you to access my super-secret email address, which is slug at mail dot utexas dot edu. Shh!

My inaugural letter comes from Jimmy, who says he lives "on the other side of Hyde Park." Jimmy! Don't make yourself so easy to find! Here's what Jimmy writes:

Gary,
Frankly I am a mess. I tuned into your show because its called Self-Help Radio but instead you were just talking about bikinis one week and then motorcycles the next. What the hell? I need Self-Help man!!! Why cant you just have a Self-Help radio show instead or playing all that music and shit???

First of all, Jimmy, it's Self Help Radio. There's no dash between the Self & the Help. Please don't make that mistake again.

Second of all, I totally feel your pain. I understand that many folks, in desperate need for a stranger to tell them simple ways to solve their difficult life problems, often wander over to my website or my radio show expecting me to be waxing prosaic like Dr. Laura Phil. I cannot believe I have been hurting so many people by simply being ironic.

So in the near future, I will announce the Self Help Minute on Self Help Radio. It will be sixty jam-packed seconds of condensed self help which, when added to your wet brain, will be like four or five hours of those other guys, without the commercials. I will scour the self help sections of used bookstores & the self help sections of used websites to find the information that is most appropriate to your life.

Problems will be solved. Answers will be discovered. Souls will be scrubbed clean. Teeth will return to their pearly whiteness. Hair will be made firm & bouncy. Women will be loved. Men will be loved. Not necessarily in this order.

Thanks for the letter, Jimmy. My eyes are open to my listeners' needs. Watch for the Self Help Minute. It'll revolutionize the time you spend listening to the radio for an entire minute.

Then, you know, back to the music & the inane chatter.

Tomorrow: Halloween show 2006! Whoo-hoo!

Whither Monsters?

Halloween shows can be a bitch. First off, I don't like playing the same song more than once. I can't say there's a philosophy behind it, but I think I can make up one which may well be the truth, & it would sound like this:

I'm on the radio ninety minutes a week. I have a few thousand records in my collection. Most of the time, people who listen to the radio hear the same thing over & over. Why not dedicate my show to playing as much different music as possible?

In general, though, most radio - even the wonderful programs on KOOP - is generally the same thing over & over. So, on Halloween, you can usually expect the same thing over & over. Most people like this, of course. I'm just trying to be difficult.

Second off, I do a show that's themed. I pick goofy themes to challenge myself to find stuff I haven't played before, & to give myself a context so I don't repeat myself all the time. But there are limited themes to Halloween: candy, trick or treating, vampires, wolfmen & wolfwomen, Frankenstein, zombies, outer space aliens, haunted houses, being scared. I've probably just listed my themes for the next few years on Halloween (except vampires - I did those last year). Besides, even when I do regular themes (like I talked about yesterday) I don't repeat myself. So why not do the same with Halloween?

Third off, there is no third off. I think I've conveniently answered my own question to my complete satisfaction. (Now I know what Donald Rumsfeld feels like.) I picked monsters because it seemed like a viable theme. What else is there to say?

Trouble is, there are a lot of monsters, Frankenstein notwithstanding. I have songs prepared for Friday about ol' Frankie, abominable snowmen, the blob, Bigfoot & others. It's a broad, cowardly topic. I hate myself for it. But what's done is done.

On Friday, four days before Halloween, you'll get to hear lots of songs about monsters, some of them imaginary & supernatural, others more down to earth. There'll also be some treats I'll give away on the show - no tricks! - but you'll got to listen to find out what.

Preface to Halloween 2006: There's A Monster In My Radio!

Recently, someone at the station who peer-evaluated my show said that, although they liked it, it seemed like my themes were "arbitrary." I liked that comment, because it's not that it seems that way. It is that way. I come up with themes at a moment's notice, sometimes, when something strikes me. For example, just today, I was listening to my iPod on shuffle & Darren Hanlon's wonderful song "(There's Not Enough Songs About) Squash" came on, & I started thinking about a show about obscure or little-celebrated sports. & that's an example that's got a reasonable beginning. Some of them are so random & inexplicable, I can't remember why or when I thought of them. (That's when I make something up.)

But there are shows that I do & have done every year since Self Help Radio began four years ago. Those shows are:

1) A Christmas show. But just one. Christmas music is fun, but too much is hard to swallow. Plus, people who do Christmas shows play all the same songs every year. Sometimes for the entire month of December. One Christmas show per year. That should be a law.

2) A "best of" [insert current year here] show. Sometimes it's hard to do, but I feel I should be trying to keep up. You know?

3) My birthday show. I was born in 1968, & three years back, on the week of my birthday, I played songs from my favorite albums from the year of my birth. The next year, it was from 1969, etc. This January, it'll be 1971.

4) A Valentine's show. I didn't get to do one this year (since KOOP had burned down & we were off the air). But I'll hopefully get to do one this next year. (The theme this year was going to be "breaking up." I don't know if I'll revisit that for 2007, or think of something else.)

5) A South By Southwest Show. As a public service. Especially if you, like me, don't really want to pay for the wristband or stand in line for all those shows.

6) An Arbor Day show. I love trees! (Okay, that's not true.)

& finally:

7) A Halloween show.

This year the theme is Monsters. I didn't want to just do a theme about Frankenstein's monster, although there are plenty of songs about him. I wanted to do a theme that talked also about humans becoming monsters. Or human who are monsters. & I take as my text for this venture this passage from John Steinbeck's East Of Eden:

I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents. Some you can see, misshapen & horrible, with huge heads or tiny bodies; some are born with no arms, no legs, some with three arms, some with tails or mouths in odd places. They are accidents & no one's fault, as used to be thought. Once they were considered the visible punishment for concealed sins.

And just as there are physical monsters, can there not be mental or psychic monsters born? The face & body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?

Monsters are variations from the accepted norma to a greater or a less degree. As a child may be born without an arm, so one may be born without kindness or the potential of conscience. A man who loses his arms in an accident has a great struggle to adjust himself to the lack, but one born without arms suffers only from people who find him strange. Having never had arms, he cannot miss them. Sometimes when we are little we imagine how it would be to have wings, but there is no reason to suppose it is the same feeling birds have. No, to a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself. To the inner monster it must be even more obscure, since he has no visible thing to compare with others. To a man born without conscience, a soul-stricken man must seem ridiculous. To a criminal, honesty is foolish. You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, & that to a monster, the norm is monstrous.

Yes, don't forget! It'll inform the show Friday. More about this tomorrow.

Weekends Haiku Wrap-Up

It's eerie. I did a show about weekends last Friday, &, as if by calendaric magic, I got a Saturday & Sunday in quick succession afterwards. I tried to do a weekends show today, in the privacy of my little cubicle at work, but all I got was the promise of a Tuesday, &, if I was good, maybe even a Wednesday so just shut the fuck up & get back to work.

But nicely poetic & poetically nice folks wrote nice, poetic haikus for the show. As always, I tell you there are great rewards for writing haikus for Self Help Radio. Just ask these four fine folks:

FOURTH PLACE: Michelle

I love the weekend
Even though I'm unemployed
& I sleep all day

THIRD PLACE: John

So the week must end
We dance over its dead body
Like we have no choice.

SECOND PLACE: Pete

The weekend's too short
Make Saturday two days long
Hey! Now you're talking!

FIRST PLACE: Valerie

Swimming, drinking, rest
Dancing, partying, yard work
Movies, sports: week end.

This week's the World Famous Self Help Radio Halloween Show. This year's all about monsters. If you have a haiku in mind, do share it with us.

& what does the weekend mean to you?

I am so used to being contrary - doing a show about Tuesdays on a Friday, for example - that I am a little embarrassed that I am doing a show about the weekend as the weekend begins. Plus, if you live in Austin, the weather is gorgeous - a little too warm & humid, perhaps, to remind someone of a northern California summer day, but close enough. It will indeed be a gorgeous weekend.

But the show is, as they say, in the can, which means I have gathered the material to make the show, & will lug it up to KOOP in a scant ninety minutes, & then I will unleash it upon anyone out there listening. I wish I could tell you something about the show to tease or tantalize, but it's going to be what you expect from me. Or is it?

I have lots of indiepop, & some old rock & roll (including Chubby Checker & Eddie Cochran). I have some silly songs from Germany, as well as entries from Japan & something in French by a band that I believe is not from France. There will doubtless be inane banter between me & my lovely apprentice, Erin, as well as me talking a whole hell of a lot about that book I mentioned earlier this week.

Oh, & no Loverboy. Thank god for that. Because I polled a small group of friends, & none of them were working for the weekend. Most of them, in fact, were slacking off for the weekend. They borrowed some money & bummed a few smokes.

Do tune in. It'll be fun. It'll (o god I can't believe I'm writing this) start your weekend off right.

Whither Weekends?

I surveyed nearly two of my friend - I mean, friends - recently about my choice of topic for this week's show, which is "weekends." I said to her - er, I mean them - why do you think I'd do a show about weekends? Their response was obvious & wrong. "Douchebag," they said (it's a pet name), "your show is on a Friday. You like to say shit on the air like, 'Your weekend starts now.' You do some kind of topical thing every now & again. What the hell do I care?"

But my mother was wrong. I mean, my friend was wrong. Friends. My friends were wrong. Because they weren't paying attention! Also, they don't read this blog. Virtually no one does. If I didn't read it to my cats, almost no one would even hear all the stuff I write here. It's really just like the poetry I wrote in high school. Except maybe I spell better now? I don't know.

Anyhoo, the point is, I'm not doing a show about weekends just because the much-beloved Self Help Radio rests on the edge between "week" & "weekend." No, there is a sentimental reason.

About four years ago last month, I got my first show on KOOP. I wasn't sure what I was going to call it, & it was temporarily occupying a place on Friday mornings (which I kind of enjoyed, but it wasn't meant to be). I had already decided to organize the show around "themes" for a couple of reasons - which I think I've already explained here - but I was also doing it against the advice of a couple of people, who said that a mildly-famous local radio host also did that. "Except," I said, "I'll play good music!" That shut 'em up. What they didn't know is that my themes would be challenging, inexplicable, utterly arbitrary - most of the time.

My very first show was a show about Friday. What a way to start it all off! Literal & appropriate. Except. I found out about getting the show just a couple of days before I was to go on the air. What? No time to prepare? Whatever shall I do?

I did what I could. I found a few Friday songs, & then, seeing as how Friday was the gateway to the weekend, I rounded it off to include some weekend songs too. That was my very first show on KOOP. As my show. Which wasn't called Self Help Radio yet. In fact, I think for some reason it was called The American Horseracing School Presents. The doctors hadn't quite figured out my meds at the time.

What's all this got to do with the price of weekends on Friday? Well, when I went to Wednesdays (where Self Help Radio stayed for three & a half years), it felt permanent. So I began my tenure there with a "Hello" show, & the award-winning run of Self Help Radio began. That was in early October 2002. Look where I am now. I have gray hairs all over my beard. Also, I've started to develop a limp. Is that natural?

Since it's the four-year anniversary month, I thought I'd sort of revisit an old theme (not really) (since I'm not doing a show about Fridays) as a kind of fourth anniversary celebration. I will have muffins made with the number four on them. Or maybe I'll defrost all those cookies I made for the Fantastic Four viewing party I had that no one came to. That's a better idea! No one will recognize the "four" logo - they're too cool to come to my parties.

So wish my a happy fourth anniversary by tuning in Friday to hear songs & talk about weekends. I promise you, after it's done, you'll get an entire weekend.

Preface to Weekends: It's Only Tuesday?!?!

I am a fanciful person, by which I mean I make a lot of stuff up. If you were me, you'd understand. I've not gotten so bad that the truths I invent to understand or enrich my life have completely overtaken me, & I believe them like they really happened - no, I'm not a Republican! - but I do sometimes have amazing fantasies in my head that are so far & above how the real world works that it's a durned shame that some of them aren't true.

Some are fed by a steady diet of movies, music & books - for example, I did once contemplate (at the age of ten) opening a microwave oven while it was operating (in the days when you could do that) so I'd be exposed to the mysterious rays & get super powers like every other Marvel Comics super hero. But some are just the workings of my mind, absurdities trying to elbow out the mundanities of tepid life in the 21st century.

& some are propped up by the arbitrary ways human beings, in our ten thousand years of so-called civilization, have constructed their ways of seeing to make sense in the world. For example, I am a bit obsessed with time. Time as a concept seems straightforward enough - it has something to do with light, something to do with the universe expanding, something to do with the nature of our mechanical, physical world - the fact that we live on a planet that spins on its axis & rotates around a yellow star. What's fascinating to me is how humans have chosen to chop up that time - seconds, minutes, hours, days - to months, years, centuries, millenia. In between all that, there is this phenomena called "the week."

I am tempted to write a very silly story about how the week was invented by a bitter old man - Ted Week - when he got really sad when his schoolmates from some ancient Babylonian or Greek or Egyptian or Chinese grade school equivalent - his pals like Herbie January & William Saturday, for example - all got periods of time named after them. Even weirdos like Horace Second & Bernice Century got some divison of time named after them! So Ted Week plotted... You can see how it would have gone.

But the truth is even weirder. As I'll explain (or try to, anyway) on my show Friday, time divisions like the month or the year are easily understood with natural phenomena - the moon, the seasons. In this wonderful book I found, "Waiting For The Weekend" by Witold Rybczynski - the author points out:

Day spans the interval between the rising & setting of the sun... The month measures - or once did - the time required for the moon to wax, become full, & wane; & the year counts one full cycle of the seasons. What does the week measure? Nothing. At least, nothing visible. No natural phenomenon occurs every seven days - nothing happens to the sun, the moon, of the stars. The week is an artifical, human-made interval.

I love the hell out of that. So why make anything up? The truth is already plainly delightful. & it doesn't even begin to suggest why humans invented a "weekend" as we now understand & experience.

By the way, this book (which I just started reading today) has nothing to do with the show being about the weekend. I'll talk about why I'm doing a show about weekends tomorrow.

Too Many Thanks

Normally - or what I'd like to do normally, anyway - I'd do a haiku wrap-up on Mondays. But I didn't get to read the haikus on Friday because it was a Membership Drive show. So, instead, without being too syrupy & goofy about it, I'd just like to thank the nice people who gave money to KOOP through Self Help Radio. I did very well for this Membership Drive because of you, & I am forced to keep making delicious radio shows because I know you have a well-developed palate for the sort of radio KOOP provides. So, without embarassing too many people, I'll thank you by your first names:

Thank you, Jenny. Thank you, Heath. Thank you, Stan & BJ. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Rosey Rose. Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Gary (what a great name you have!). Thank you, Nancy. Thank you, Bolan. Thank you, Twyla & Schrieber. Thank you, Robert. Thank you, Tania. Thank you, Robert. Thank you, John. & finally, thank you, Tim.

Stephen Colbert jokingly calls his audience "the heroes," but KOOP is such a deeply personal enterprise for its volunteers that I think it translates into a deeply personal radio experience for its listeners, & you guys are more than heroes to us at KOOP - you're our best friends. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Last Day Of Membership Drive Jitters

What the word that means before the thing that is before the thing that is last? Like, the last thing is the ultimate thing, which always amuses me when I see a Steely Dan "greatest hits" record which says "The ULTIMATE Collection," as if (oh, if only God were good) it was going to be the very last Steely Dan collection ever. Alas, it won't be. "Ultimate" has become a word that just sounds good so it must be cool. Anyway, before ultimate is penultimate, which means, basically, next to last. As in, "I was the penultimate pick by the popular kids for the dodgeball team. But Gary was their ultimate choice." (They used to say that to make me feel better. Twelve seconds later, I was the first kids "out" by getting beaned by a filthy, smelly, sweaty ball to the groin.) But there is no word, as far as I know, for "next to next to last." But if there was one...

My show is the [insert nonexistent word meaning "next to next to last" here] show of KOOP's Fall Membership Drive, & boy am I nervous about it. It starts in about two hours, &, while I am convinced it's an excellent show, of the nerdy & drooly quality that I love in all music shows, I know how fickle radio listeners are, & I know that some people just can't afford it. It still makes me nervous. I love KOOP like I love cheese, so you can imagine how high the stakes are for me.

& thusly. I present, for one last time, the link to the page on the KOOP web site where you can make a pledge & become a member of KOOP. I hope you listen, I hope you like, & I hope I move some people enough to help out a unique & utterly wonderful experiment in community-run radio like KOOP.

But ugh. My stomach is killing me.

I Am Daydreaming About Law & Order

You think I am kidding, but I'm not.

A few years ago, maybe half my life ago, I was in love & there were bunnies who held my held my hand & I sang each morning when I woke, & it was special song, not unlike those cell phone rings that only young people can hear, except my songs were beautiful to people who were in love, & to those who weren't, it induced fits of nausea & vomiting which are more common to those who have radiation poisoning.

Anyway, it ended (as it does), & I was a broken person. While I have always been a hungry-to-voracious reader, I found that people were constantly writing about relationships. Either the beginning or the ending, but any talk of relationships in any form - poetry, plays, novels - it made me physically ill & plunged me more deeply into unhappiness than before. (Also, the products were misleading. I tried to learn what we talk about when we talk about love in Raymond Carver's book, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," but I could never figure out what exactly he was talking about, & I realized that I just want to hear any more damn talk about love, goddamnit!)

So, visiting my moms, I picked up a Sherlock Holmes collection by Conan Doyle, &, reading through it, I realized, "Hey! Sherlock never talks about love! He fucking hates it!" So I began to devour detective literature in earnest. Because there, even if love somehow plays a part in the murder/crime/whatever, it's the crime that counts. You can ignore the syrupy lovers. (& in the hard-boiled stuff, like Spillane, it's more about sex than love.)

I was so happy when, about seven or eight years ago, I discovered Law & Order on TV. I liked the fact that the shows were plot-driven, that a lot of the "crime solving" was in the police procedural vein, & especially that, like in real life, you found out details of the lives of the main characters incidentally. (Incidentally, I love Vincent D'Onofio's character in the the L&O: Criminal Intent show mainly because of his Sherlock Holmesian qualities, which some people don't like.) (Also, I rediscovered the brilliance of Columbo & appreciate it on a very similar level.)

I am a much happier person now, though I never quite regained the big heart I had in that early relationship that went bad, but I more than ever love mystery stories & good tv crime drama. That's not why I was daydreaming about Law & Order today, though. It's even more sinister.

I was thinking how much I truly like the characters, how sad I am when they "die" or "move on," & how sometimes the fate of these fictional folks moves me much more than people in my real life. If I "knew" the fictional characters in their fictional worlds, I'm not sure they'd like me very much, but that's also true about a lot of the musicians I deeply admire. (I have a feeling I'd spend most of my time with Dylan restraining myself from punching him. & I think John Lennon would think I was a douche.) What all this means is that I spent some time today, usually on smoke breaks, thinking about people who aren't real & comparing them to people who are, but whom I don't generally care about as much as the made-up characters on the tv.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with Self Help Radio, of course. It's just a thought I am having, a snapshot of my day. But it might be an insight into my obsessive nature with regards to music - because there are songs that have moved me more powerfully than events "in real life." I feel a fundamental truth in human creation - even if I don't get that a lot from regular ol' humans.

Did I mention KOOP's Fall 2006 Membership Drive? We have two more days to go. Please think about giving something to the station - also a creation - that I dearly love. As well, if you can do it during my show from 4:30 to 6:00pm CST tomorrow, it would be cool. The toll free number is 1-888-917-5667.

Whither Sampling?

Oh, really, why the hell not? The idea of extremely catchy tunes - some with the music itself sampled - with silly samples - from old movies, from old instructional records, from other songs, from unknown obscure sources - & sometimes with some cool-ass turntablism skills - that idea, played on the radio, should be very fun. Shouldn't it?

Well, I think so. & it's my show.

The first time I heard a sampled tune was probably the eminently ridiculous "Mr Jaws," which, it turns out, was made by the same folks who created a sampled tune from the fifties called "Flying Saucer" (which I will in fact play on Friday). As a kid about three years away from discovering Dr. Demento, I was charmed. I tried to do the same thing myself - writing fake questions for songs I owned to insert into. Not so easy! & a little time consuming. & I soon gave it up to play with my Star Wars figures. But a seed was planted.

When I started to become interested in music that somehow spoke to me (as opposed to music that made me laugh) (look, I was a sullen teenager who identified with Robert Smith & Morrissey far more than Barnes & Barnes or Weird Al) (besides, there was smarter music that was funny & yet actually meant something in my future), I forget about the whole "sampling" thing. Until, of course, my sorry little white boy ass was exposed for the first time to hip hop.

What! These guys aren't playing anything! They're using drum machines & sampling songs by James Brown. Never mind that I, a person naturally geared toward the verbal, completely missed the rapping element of the MC, or even the delivery - the moment that turned me around was hearing the Bomb Squad's production on Public Enemy records. Sampled sounds, meticulously crafted, making them more than the sum of their (borrowed) parts. True musical collage. Extraordinary. & funky.

(I won't be playing any PE Friday, though. Why? Because:)

Then came "Pump Up The Volume." The lyrics are all samples! Listen to that! & for a little while, until money entered the picture, there was some neat stuff coming out. Nowadays, it's harder to do that, since you have to clear samples, & some people want lots of money for the little pieces of the songs artists might want to use.

I probably don't own a lot of it, but the stuff I like - from Coldcut to the Avalanches, from the Books to David Byrne & Brian Eno's work in the early 80's - will be stuff I play this Friday. I am calling it "A Brief History Of Sampling," because it'll be ninety minutes long & I don't feel I have an exhaustive collection. But it should be fun fun fun. & also you can dance. & do that thing you do when you hear a sampled sound & you're like, "Christ, what movie/song/TV show/other did that sample come from?"

I should also mention that show will be on the very last day of KOOP's Fall Membership Drive. So if you listen & like, please give.

Preface To A Brief History Of Sampling: I Stole All The Letters I Use In This Blog

Do I have to tell you over & over? KOOP is having its Fall Membership Drive right now. Go support KOOP!

This Friday, for my second & final Membership Drive show of the year, I am going to play lots of silly songs that have either samples of people talking, samples of music, samples of samples, or all of the above. I'll have a couple of songs that predate the year of my birth, but most of them will come from the last twenty-five years or so. Why is that? Because the first digital sampler was released in 1975. That's essential. Before that, it was a lot of cutting up & pasting of tape.

I myself was sampled once, & this is definitely not the beginning of a story about some sex shop I visited in Copenhagen, nor is it a story of being cannibalized. Actually, I think I've been sampled more than once. I guess that comes with being on the radio. People can tape you, they can edit you, they can mix you up. I fully expect one day, with all the talking I do, to hear myself talking very audaciously about something terribly disgusting. That would rule.

I'm a little tired & so can't think of any funny lies about sampling. I guess sampling applies mainly to the music/sound world, so if I "sampled" anything in print, it'd just be plagiarism. A lot of the problems people have with sampling is related to the concept of claiming someone else's writing is your own - surely it's the same with music!

& so it is. But the truth is, the stuff I'll play interests me because it's creative, not derivative. Nowadays, a lot of musical artists will basically sample an entire song, usually a popular song, even if they sing or rap something different over it. Far more difficult is to do something truly creative, like what Danger Mouse did with Jay Z & the Beatles. I can't play any of that, though - that's illegal!

I am very amused & excited by songs in which the normal verbal parts are replaced with samples. That's a lot of what I'll play Friday. But why a show called "A Brief History Of Sampling"? Ask me tomorrow.

Velvet Underground Haiku Wrap-Up

I must apologize, because in the heat of the Membership Drive, where it's important to get as much information about supporting the station as possible, along with the regular stellar mix of music, I forget, this past Friday, to read your haikus. I am so sorry.

But wait! Did someone say Membership Drive? That's right, KOOP's Fall Membership Drive continues. Please give something to the greatest radio station ever in the history of radio I kid you not baby.

& thank you to those who pledged their support to my show Friday.

Now, the unannounced winners:

FOURTH PLACE: Daisy

Please tell me, Lou Reed
What’s that John Cale fellow like?
He is so dreamy.

THIRD PLACE: Bill

Give me sex & drugs
Help me to understand them
Like the Velvets did

SECOND PLACE: Lou

When I am hurting
When I’m lonesome, need a fix,
I know who to call

FIRST PLACE: Sally

Behind ev’ry door
People do desperate things
Velvet Underground

This week I'll be sampling (ha ha) a few musics that are important in the history of sampling. You can always write a haiku about it. If you want.

Fear Of Membership Drive

I know, I'm repeating myself - also, I'm repeating myself - but I can't keep from saying that KOOP, the bestest radio station in Austin & one of the last truly independent radio stations in the United States, is having its Fall Membership Drive right now. Please think about contributing. Because once you think about it, you'll want to contribute.

I am writing this mere hours (less than four) before my first Membership Drive show of the season. The title of this post doesn't mean "fear of those long, chatty weeks when a listener-sponsored radio station begs for cash." Oh no. It means "fear on the part of the programmer who has to beg their dear listeners for cash." Because it scares the bejeebies out of me. My stomach is twisting into slow knots & I occasionally feel like sitting down & catching my breath - especially when I am sitting down & breathing normally.

Oh boo hoo! you say. The dude who's got his own radio show is worried that no one will support it! Well I wish I had your problems, brother.

Boy, you're unsympathetic. The reason that I am nervous may well be based somewhat on my own ego - I do want you to love my show more than you love your pets - but more than that, I love the radio station my show is on. Not the least for being a place where a completely obsessive & utterly mush-brained fellow like myself can have a radio show.

KOOP (pronounced, in case you didn't know, either with the letters spelled out - K-O-O-P - or as an alternate spelling for "cooperative" shortened - KO-OP) (& not like "coop," although sometimes one can feel mighty cooped up in there behind the mic) is a small affair, subsisting on an annual budget which is the equivalent of the same budget a commercial radio station has for booze & floozies for its Board of Directors. We broadcast at 3000 watts & over the Internet, & we compete in the Austin market & with every other Internet radio station in the world. We get some money from underwriting by local businesses, & some from grants, but the majority of the day-to-day expenses we have are paid by the two Membership Drives we have per year.

My show is ninety minutes long. That's a small fraction of the time we're on the air - KOOP has some seventy programs - but I want to be able to pull my own weight financially. That's a lot of pressure for a guy who's probably already in the short queue for "Young Heart Attack &/or Stroke."

In addition, I confess I am a terrible salesperson. I always have been. Willy Loman could run circles around me. I've known this since middle school when, in 8th grade, for a National Honor Club type of organization, I refused to sell M&M's to raise money for the organization. Which took a lot of stones for my 13 year old self. I was a shy kid, mostly terrified of the world, but knew deep in my heart that I couldn't sell drugs to a junkie, & stood up for myself. The teacher sponsors, of course, beat me up & took my lunch money as payment.

But it should be easier - shouldn't it? - since I'll be doing what I'm always doing - playing great music & blabbing on the radio. I'm still nervous before a show - 12 years on - anyway. But it somehow isn't. No, I'm not crying. Shut up.

Don't feel sorry for me, laying out my insecurities on my obscure blog. I'm just letting you know: it may be tough for you, with your budget & the number of non-profits vying for your support, to decide to give money to a tiny radio station. I appreciate that. But since the programmers at stations like KOOP are real human beings, not Clear Channel-brand corporate music robots, we have some jitters too. Do with that knowledge what you will.

I'm going to go throw up now.

Whither The Velvet Underground?

Hey! There's a Membership Drive going on at Austin's best radio station! You need to be involved! You need to contribute! If only because they're the sort of station that puts Self Help Radio on the air.

Speaking of Membership Drives, I recall one time when I asked a former KOOP programmer if he were going to do anything special for the Drive. He did a show that claimed to feature "one hundred years of African-American music," but mainly he spun funk & hip-hop. His response was, "Nah. During the Pledge Drive, I just give the listeners the gravy." Meaning he played the popular stuff to encourage people to pledge.

It seems a good idea - but my show isn't really about a specific genre or time period or something like that. It's a freeform show with boundaries - & those boundaries happen to be the themes I (or sometimes a listener) come up with. I do it for a lot of reasons - to keep myself guessing, to keep myself amused, to keep you amused, to take advantage of my unruly record collection. After all, if you just want the popular stuff, you know where to go: commercial, satellite or internet radio will give you 80's stations, classic rock stations, cool jazz stations, whatever. They generally (but not always) are programmed by someone other than the person talking on the air - if there's a person talking at all. I think they lack heart, they lack soul, they lack something human - but you might not be looking for that, so I respect your choice.

But I do want to make my Membership Drive shows special, so recently I've been trying to give listeners "the gravy," but with something of a twist (twisted gravy? Jesus, Gary, your metaphors!). Last spring, I presented a tribute to David Bowie containing not a single David Bowie recording - but instead with his songs covered by others (to show how his own work is absorbed & translated) & songs either mimicking him or celebrating him. It seemed to go over well. (By the way, you can listen to that show here.)

This time around, I tried to think about an artist beloved in the same way Bowie is. Some artists, of course, are a little too easy - Dylan & the Beatles come to mind - & some are painfully hard - I love Elvis Costello, but good covers of Elvis Costello songs are harder to find that someone who can pass a lie detector test in the current administration. Asking people informally, I found there was one group that seemed to have a devoted listener base, a group of discriminating music lovers who held them in very high esteem indeed. That group was, of course, the Velvet Underground.

After several weeks of listening to a lot of VU covers, I am impressed how far & wide the echoes of that band, which seemed to struggle so during its lifetime, have spread. Someone once said, "Not a lot of people bought the Velvet Underground's first album, but the ones who did formed a band." I would also add, "The bands who bought & paid attention to all the albums of the Velvet Underground learned everything they needed to know about writing good songs."

& here I am, giving it a go. Ninety minutes (minus the obligatory airbreaks asking for your cash to help the station) of bands singing VU songs the way they sung them in the shower, with tracks covered from the first album to the last, & a couple of songs about the band & its members in-between. How can it go wrong?

We'll see you Friday as I pay tribute to one of America's greatest bands, the Velvet Underground. Please listen & please think about helping KOOP out with your support.

Preface to the Velvet Underground Tribute Show: The Time I Met John Cale, Lou Reed Watched Scornfully

Before I begin another story full of lies, I want to say again: The KOOP Membership Drive is happening now. Please give generously. Please give painfully. Please give thoughtlessly. Just please give.

What can I say about the Velvet Underground that hasn't already been written about by self-important critics & fans for over thirty years now? Really, nothing. They're great. They're influential. They looked amazing in black. They took more drugs & had more sleazy lifestyles than your average congressional intern. But more than anything else, what affects me most about them are two things I really appreciate about unbelievably great music:

1) It's timeless. You can play a Velvet Underground song to someone from age ten to age ten-squared, & it sounds as if it were made yesterday.

2) It has an emotional center. This may seem weird description of a song's character, but so much music may be emotive, or may have sparks of the things that makes rock & roll great (sex & death, desire & pain) but it might just be an outburst rather than a sustained emotional experience. Think of "Pale Blue Eyes." It's certainly lovely, with a catchy melody, but deep down the song is about longing, gratitude & guilt. How many songs that you love feel & seem so three-dimensional?

Also, though there are some gaping holes in "Loaded," the four albums always seem more than the sum of their parts, & until John Cale left, you couldn't really tell where Lou Reed left off & John Cale began, & among the majority of their oeuvre, you can never get rid of the beating joy of Moe Tucker or the sturdy backbone of Sterling Morrison. (& later, of course, you find it wearying to scratch the bugbite itch of Doug Yule.)

But now: the lies.

So I met John Cale in a bar in Barbados (he was working out with barbells, & I had been barred from my favorite honky tonk on the island, the Bar None) &, since I was a fresh-faced nineteen-year-old who knew all the words to "Fear Is A Man's Best Friend," we got very friendly & started discussing the merits of Welshmen & homosexuality. I myself was starstruck, & also John Cale had banged my knee with a barbell, so you could say I was Calestruck as well.

John Cale - & maybe no one knows this - is a master hypnotist who can put you under faster than you can recite the story behind "The Gift." After seventeen "Island Specials" - basically just rum drunk from a hollowed-out grapefruit - he began to tell me what he called "the secret" - the secret, I supposed, to success, to rock genius, to being tall with a cool Welsh accent. I must admit I wasn't much of a drinker back then, so either I was hypnotized or I was trying desperately to keep the world from spinning me like a top, because, while I listened intently & deeply wanted to know "the secret," I was easily distracted by a disapproving grunt from the back of the bar.

Omigod! It was Lou Reed! He was dressed all in black, with big black sunglasses covering his chiseled, Muppet-off-the-junk face. John Cale looked a little surprised, then turned back to me. "He's always around," he told me cheerfully, "he doesn't want anyone else to know 'the secret.'"

Lou Reed came at John Cale slowly, a chain of some kind produced quickly from a pocket in his black leather jacket. John Cale simply stood up, revealing a sturdy, well-worn snooker cue. It looked as if things would be bad. Through my fuzzy head I could hear words & phrases muttered by both, angry, bloodthirsty: "Traitor!" "Producer!" "Junkie!" "Robot!" "Andy always liked me better!" "Nico always hated you!"

I confess, I tried to stand & say, "Gentlemen, please. You are giants in the world of music. Your influence continues, ripples you started in the late sixties overturn entire genres to this day. Please don't fight! Please, for the love of all that is good & pure, put down your weapons & put away your differences. The world needs you!"

As I say, I tried to stand, but instead I fell, & my speech came out like a gurgle (along with two of my teeth) as I landed face-first on the wooden floor.

I didn't get a chance to see what happened next, as I woke up the next day, back in my lonesome bedroom in Austin. How I got home I don't know, but I was relieved to learn that neither Lou Reed nor John Cale lost their lives that night. Instead, within a year, the two had begun working together, recording "Songs For Drella" &, for a short time, reuniting the Velvets to tour. & I'd like to think maybe I had a hand in it.

KOOP's Fall Membership Drive

As I've mentioned before, in case you didn't notice, I am a deejay at a commercial radio station in Austin, Texas. If you're reading this blog, you might have actually listened to the station (although I do get a lot of creepy emails that seem to think this blog, & by extension the show, is really about self help & could they talk to me about aromatherapy curing obsessive-compulsive disorder for only 59.99?), & if you have, you have doubtless heard what a vital, original, oddball station we are, a very oasis in the commercial wasteland of FM radio, 75% of which is owned by own company.

KOOP's runs on very little money. So we need to ask our listeners for help. We do this twice a year. This time of year is when we are doing it right now. Man, that's an awkward sentence. I'm not good at begging unless you're wearing a leather mask & making me like something disgusting off the floor. Excuse the clumsiness of this.

I must keep reminding you, though, & would be very grateful if you chose to help KOOP out with whatever you can spare cash-wise. It would be much appreciated. You can do it two ways:

1) Call during my show (I'd like that!) which is on Fridays from 4:30 to 6pm CST. The toll free number is 1-88-917-5667. The toll unfree number (whatever that means) is 512 472 5667.

or

2) Pledge online by clicking here or above.

Thank you for thinking about it! Now, as Yoda Spock once said, "There is no think, only do, live long & prosper."

Sleepy Haiku Wrap-Up

Amazingly, a great many people were able to stay awake during my show on Friday, which was about sleepiness. But what truly made them sleepy were the following winning haikus. Remember, you can always write a haiku if you visit the Self Help Radio Haiku Contest Page. Boo-ya!

Big ups to the winners:

FOURTH PLACE: Mindy

Selfish sleep junkie
Look at her doze standing up
Hey! Make her wake up!

THIRD PLACE: Arturo

Yes, it’s important
For you & me to talk now
I just can’t stay zzzzzzzzz

SECOND PLACE; Mitch

Stupid alarm clock
I’m too sleepy to wake up
Five more minutes!

FIRST PLACE: Magda

Eyelids close tonight
New novel line completed
Drool drips on pillow

This week's show is a tribute to the Velvet Underground, so if you've ever wanted to write a haiku for or about Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker or (it's a weird world, so why not) Doug Yule, please send a haiku to me.

Upcoming Show Ideas: Halloween!

Halloween approaches, with barely enough time to dig up the candy corn, which you use to keep away moths in your closet, to give to the unsuspecting kids who will never know nor experience the great Halloweens of our childhood, with the cool razors in the apples & the glass in the chocolate. Ah, Mr. Evans from down the way. How were we to know he was part of the team that invented LSD? He made our Halloweens truly a trick and a treat.

Too bad he had to die in prison.

Speaking of monsters, my Halloween show this year will be all about those lovable, misunderstood killing machines who range from the smallish - think Gremlins - to the famous human-sized-ish - think Frankenstein's monster - to the largish - think Mothra. In addition, I plan to play songs in which we describe others as "monsters," usually because they treat us mean. Like that woman you broke up with - she took your heart & threw it in the lake!

Ideally, I'd love songs about the crazy sort of monsters that Jack Kirby drew for Marvel Comics in the late 50s/early 60s. Like Gruto. Or Monstrollo. Or Fin Fang Foom. But chances are no musician is hip enough to write songs about those kinds of monsters.

(By the way, all those links above are from a very cool site called Monster Blog. I am in love.)

If you have idears for monster songs, do please start throwing them at me, either here on the blog, or mailing them to me. Halloween is about a month away! I want to be armed with all the coolest, deadliest, goofiest, stinkiest monsters I can find.

Thank you.

Whither Sleepy?

Why, in the name of all that's wakeful, would I want to do a show about being sleepy? (This is the sort of argument I have in my head all the time.) (I lose those arguments more than I win them.) (Which doesn't say a whole lot about my sense of self.) (I get a little carried away when I use parentheses for asides.) I mean, for Peter & Paul's sake, isn't my show on a Friday afternoon? Aren't people getting ready for a long, conscious, alert, drug-filled weekend? Why would anyone coming home from work after an exhausting week want to listen to songs about being sleepy?

Very good questions from my head. I have no very good answers. My show ideas come to me like spitballs from my enemies in 7th grade. (You guys know who you are.) I let them smack me in the head & sometimes they stick. A few weeks ago, while sitting at work & being astonishingly groggy for no good reason, I thought to myself, "What is this thing called tiredness? Do people really write songs about it?"

Sleepy can happen when you've just awoken or for a while before you go to sleep. But sleepy seems so innocuous compared to tired - tired is what you are after a long meeting, or after mowing your lawn, or after a conversation with your significant other about "where this relationship is going." Tired is sleepy times ten, & sometimes can't be helped with sleep. Sometimes a pint of whiskey will drive tired down to sleepy. But tired is nothing compared to exhausted.

Exhausted is one of those words that sounds like it feels. Exhaustion makes you thinks of the exhaust that comes out of tailpipes - you're so exhausted, you might have just been broken down to your component chemicals in a hot, nasty internal combustion engine & all that's left is the smokey, polluting haze of what you once were. Exhaustion isn't cured by sleep, but by your body completely, utterly shutting itself down. Exhaustion makes you put yourself into a coma. Hell, when I'm exhausted, tired seems like a vacation in San Francisco.

Of course, there's good exhaustion, when you choose to push yourself to your limit, or when you're having too good a time dancing to care about your fuel gauge. But even then - exhaustion > tired > sleepy (the > means "greater than" here, you algebra dropout), with each "greater than" an exponential factor rather than a geometric gradient.

Don't those words just make you want to nap? Sleepy, tired, exhausted. Whew.

I can promise you, however, that Friday's show will be full of information & energy, not a show celebrating the state of sleepiness but a wide-awake examination from an afternoon point of view. So don't be afraid my show will put you to sleep - any more than normal, that is - but instead tune in to find out, musically & in my airbreaks, what this sleepy feeling is all about. Hopefully it'll give you a virtual rest so you'll be able to stay up later for the weekend.

Preface to Sleepy: Am I Boring You?

We spend our days, for whatever reason, in a perpetual state between moderate alertness (you never know when the boss is going to be coming around the corner) & a half-doze. I myself am tired more often than not, & am usually only not tired when I am distracted. Why is that? Are we not engaged enough in our jobs, our lives? Do we simply not get enough sleep? & what is enough sleep? Is there too much sleep? Does that make us sleepy?

Sleepy as a physical condition was first identified by the great Egyptian/Greek scholar Lethargicos after what many archaeologists consider the first sleep study (& what many naughty sociologists consider the first sleep over) during "scroll rebinding night" at the great Library of Alexandria in the second century AD. Or CE. Whatever. While spending a long day dusting & tightly wrapping the library's immense collection of scrolls, Lethargicos noticed that many of the volunteers for the project yawned, nodded off, chewed an extraordinary amount of betel leaves, &, on one interesting occasion, one particular volunteer, who was covering his eyes while closely examining one apparently engaging papyrus scroll, actually fell face-first into the pages, smearing drool everywhere.

Lethargicos decided to try to quantify his observations by keeping the workers around as long as possible, thereby beginning the long-standing social scientist tradition of ordering out for pizza to prolong a study. He asked increasingly surreptitious questions about the mental state of his subjects, from the obvious "Did you get enough sleep last night?" & "Are you simply bored by this?" to such trickery as "Do you think adding more ostrich feathers to my bed will make it softer & comfier?" & stretching his arms out & emitting a long, drawn-out, overwrought yawn.

Though his landmark study, "Oh My Drowsy Colleagues" was lost in the great fire that destroyed the library some centuries later, his work was carried on by the Arabic scholar Hassin Al-Somnol, who was the first scientist to categorize the seventeen stages from wakefulness to sleep. As children, we learned them by heart in elementary school, but it surprises many westerners that they weren't, after all, invented by the British in the 18th century as crucial elements of the new "novel" form, but instead the result of a lifetime of scientific rigor & toil by Al-Somnol & his team at the Moroccan Sleep Number Center. Al-Somnol could be a stern taskmaster, especially when a subject fell asleep too quickly, without properly noting the stages; testees who failed to follow protocol were often engaged in what sociologists now call "pillow fights."

His landmark work, "Sleepiness & The Modern Moor," found its way to Medieval Europe & was Christianized so as not to draw attention to it. Despite references to it in Dante, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Cervantes & the forgotten Scottish poet Fred Hirmsch, it took several centuries (& a bitter dispute between Isaac Newton & Samuel Pepys) to thrust it into the English limelight. British people found themselves utterly exhausted by all the annoying posturing going around, & it became amusing to refer to royals, politicians & military men by the level of tiredness they aroused in the populace. Thus, though he thought it a worthy epithet, "Stupefying" John Locke was actually being made fun of by the people of England.

In our modern world, computers enable us to monitor our state of sleepiness, usually with downloaded porn &/or annoying screen savers. Yet many researchers think that the human being's ability to function in a kind of zombie-like state between actual repose & willful alertness remains a mystery, & studies are planned well into the 21st century, much of it involving television & recordings by Yanni. So the questions asked at the beginning of this essay are certainly as fresh & unanswered as they were to the ancients.

Perhaps this Friday, you can find illumination on Self Help Radio.

& if you're interested, last Friday's show is now available to listen to at the Self Help Radio web site.

Yellow Haiku Wrap-Up

I just got a strange email from a strange young lady who (not so strangely) likes Self Help Radio, & in particular has a fondness for the haiku. In case you haven't heard the show (& if so, why are you reading this?) (not to be a freak about it or anything), I read listener-submitted haikus at the end of each show, & there's more info about the haiku submission process over on http://www.selfhelpradio.net/haiku.html.

This email I just received, though, basically said this (I shall paraphrase): You just started doing this blog, dude, so why don't post haiku there? Sometimes you read them too fast! Sometimes I'm like late & miss a couple! Take advantage of the web, man. Post haiku!

So I shall. However, I won't post the writers' full names, as I do on the air, just because. If they want to google themselves, they need to do what I do: make my own web pages.

So, without any further folderol, are the winners of last Friday's Self Help Radio Yellow Haiku contest. I print them from the fourth place winner, up, although I got a last minute haiku right before the contest, so I gave it an Honorable Mention. It comes first:

Honorable Mention: David's haiku

Cowardly faded
The color of piss & pus
It's my favorite

Now, the winners:

FOURTH PLACE: George

Hey! I ain’t yella!
I could beat up all o’ y’all!
I just ain’t gonna.

THIRD PLACE: Amber

Jaundice is my skin
Wet yellow are my sclera
Hepatitis B

SECOND PLACE; Mario

I will fall in love
With she whose eyes are yellow
As Data’s eyes are

FIRST PLACE: Florida

Yellow helps me breathe
& to photosynthesize
I’m a sunflower.

I'll try to make this a regular feature on this blog, if I can remember & when I'm not ashamed of your haiku submissions.