Owl Haiku Wrap-Up & Stuff

I had a great time doing the owl show & some of you had a great time writing haikus for it. If you haven't already, visit the Self Help Radio home page & read about the haiku contest. It's quickly replaced "poetry slam" as Austin's ignored poetry of choice!

Here are the winners of last week's bird-of-prey-licious owl haiku contest:

FOURTH PLACE: Ted

You stuffing an owl
The last night at our old place
All the light had gone

THIRD PLACE: Amber

She threw a tantrum
Because her mother called her
Stupid as an owl

SECOND PLACE: Jim

The back of the barn
Where I thought I heard hooting
Two eyes meeting mine

FIRST PLACE: Maryann

Pray, pray, bird of prey
Your prey can’t hear your wings flap
As they eat & play

As I mentioned last week, the Anonymous Limerick Writer has been writing a limerick per week based on the theme. Here's his not-very-anonymous limerick about owls:

There once was a pretentious owl
Who’d dress in a cape & a cowl
Despite his station
By reputation
He was known as an awfully foul fowl.

Thanks & congrats to all entrant & contributors.

Today's "Song Of The Day" is a direct result of me looking for crushworthy songs about crushes from my Valentine's Day show next week, which will be about crushing on people (duh). So I was listening to the BMX Bandits all morning, & I did find a song to play by them, but it won't be this song, which comes from the Serious Drugs compilation of their Creation Records run. The song is called "Next Girl" & clicking on the name will let you listen to it. This mp3 will be removed February 12, 2007, just in time to not offend Lincoln on his birthday.

Tomorrow - & most of this week - there'll be nothing but mistakes here, since that's what my show is about this week.

Must I Answer Letters? I Must Answer Letters!

It's Thursday, & in addition to my regular "training" I do by running my iPod up & down a random tracklist to exercise it, in preparation for the show tomorrow, I also take this time to answer my hardly ever overflowing mailbag. It's sad, not very many people wrote me while I was in Europe. I felt unloved. Which is all right, because it is my natural state. Thank you for confirming my worst fears.

This email comes from someone who told me not to say any part of their name, not even their first initial, which is M:

Gary,
I know youve been traveling and all but have you giving up on putting your shows on your webpage? I was hoping to hear a couple of shows I missed but theyre still not there. I am not able to listen all the time so your mp3's are great.

Well, M, I am glad you said something because I certainly was about to. Isn't that website, Self Help Radio Dot Net, shabbily organized? Oh, I noticed that everything was updated last week, the 2006 playlists put where they belong, etc., but why haven't the FOUR - that's right, FOUR - shows done recently put put up? Three in 2007! What the fuck is up?

Actually, it's a software issue. I'm waiting for an upgrade for my digitizing software. So, I'll be putting the shows up - just as soon as I can start digitizing them. Thank you for your patience, patients.

Now: the "Song Of The Day":

I apologize in advance for the not-very-good quality of the mp3, but it sounds like it was recorded from vinyl. It's from a record compiled in 1981 called Hot Boppin' Girls, Vol. 2, which is part a series of albums (without a notes & copyright information, so it may have some kind of murky legal status) featuring women singers of rock & roll & rockabilly from the late 50s. This particular song is by a perfomer named Barbara Greene, about whom I could find nothing on the web, aside from the fact that she recorded a few 7"s in the 50s. It's a cover of a rock standard, & I like two things about it:

1) The hint of gender reversal.
2) The weird dude doing backing vocals. If you can call them that.

It's a cover of Long Tall Sally & you can hear it by clicking on the name of the song. This mp3 will remain on this site until February 8, 2007.

Remember! You can write me an email at any time. & tomorrow Self Help Radio's all about owls!

Whither Owls?

The idea for a show about owls probably came to me entirely at random. It's been a long time, so I don't know. I come up with ideas, usually while trying not to think about my radio show, mostly while reading something on the web late at night, some news report that is ubiquitous & has grabbed the nation's attention, but I've completely missed it. (A recent example: I just today found out about who Michael Devlin is. If you don't know, don't bother - they'll be making a Law & Order episode about it soon enough. If you do know, you pay more attention to our culture than I apparently do.)

I have ideas for radio shows that I know I'll never completely realize. I want to do a show about different dimensions, for example, but can you name three songs where that's talked about? I also want to do a show about being clumsy & awkward, & I might be able to pull that off, but it'll take a lot of work. As for owls, well. I was most probably either listening to a song about owls & that set me off or it landed in my head like a bird of prey on a branch.

One thing I am hoping to avoid is the whole "night owl" song cliche. I may play one or two, but the nickname for a partyer who stays out all night seems to disrespect the elegant fowl whom this show will celebrate. Exceptions? There's a pretty great Gene Chandler song that I like, & maybe the sad song by Lowell Fulson (which may predate the celebratory definition of "night owl," since the protagonist calls himself that epithet because he's sadly wandering the streets for his unfaithful love). But mostly I wanted songs that reference the hooting birds.

I am interested in how different cultures view the owl. As I'll talk about on Friday, we in the west consider the owl wise primarily because of its association with Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. In other parts of the world, though, it's a symbol of evil (maybe wisdom is bad?) & in India, it's very common to call someone stupid by comparing them to an owl. (One article I read said this was because the owl has a "dumb stare." Dumb? I think it's creepily disinterested & intense.) But you can wait till Friday to listen to owl stories. Or - I can't resist - you might not give a hoot.

By the way, I don't think there's a relationship to the noise owls make & the "hoot" of "I don't give a hoot." But that won't stop me from playing a song about not giving a hoot. But you probably don't give a rat's ass. You want to hear:

the "Song Of The Day"

This is a jazzy piece from a vocal ensemble from Poland from the 60s & 70s called the Novi Singers. They appear on this compilation I have called Go Right: Jazz From Poland 1963 - 1975, which is much more kitschy, popular music-assocation jazz than the avant-grade stuff happening at the same time. If you imagine a kind of Burt Bacharach aesthetic mixed with a production music sense of psychedelia, & you like what you imagine, you'll like this. (I don't mean to seem dismissive - this is really quite a lot of fun.) The song is called The Runway, & clicking on the name there will let you listen to the mp3. It will be removed from this site on February 7, 2007.

Tommorow: another song, & a letter answered. Though not in that order.

Preface To Owls: Are They Stupid Or Wise?

A co-worker just told me that owls look like cats. I had never thought about it. I had been thinking about owls & cats, though - probably because of this Burl Ives song I'll most likely play on Friday - that owls, which can be quite large, would be one hell of a meal for a cat. Especially my cats, who'd probably play with an owl before killing it, then just eat a little bit of it, & then leave the rest for me, in that weird way that cats share their kills with their owners. But, truly, a baby owl could probably kick all three of my cats' asses.

My cats are pussies.

Owls are fucking gorgeous creatures. Here's a page with pictures about owls of North America. I don't think I've seen a lot owls in my life, but recently, on an early morning walk with my girlfriend & our dogs, I did see one in a tree just before dawn, its silhouette stern & imposing. I am glad there are owls in our neighborhood - I just wish they'd maybe come hang out or something, preferably when they're first coming out (if they have to come at night) rather than right before they call it a day, since I'm hardly ever up that early, & I don't think my girlfriend really wants to be hanging out with owls. Not in the same way I do.

Here's a web page with pictures about the Eastern Screech Owl, featuring something that sounds naughty called a "nest cam." This site, by the way, is hosted where I work, the University of Texas, & the owls were here in Austin. I don't think this was the kind of owl I saw. I like the name "Screech Owl," though.

The site has a link to a list of sites that feature live video &/or updated photographs of nesting birds if you're that kind of weirdo. They have a name for sickos like you: amateur ornithologist. I foresee years of therapy for you & your ilk.

& now: the "Song Of The Day".

Today's song is from last year's collection of B-sides & stuff called Future Crayon (which is dumb name for a record) by the English band Broadcast (which is a great name for a band). I'm not a huge fan of the band, because I like my music to be a little more snappy than theirs is, but this is a lovely electronically-influenced instrumental from the record that cycled on my iPod as I started to write this. It's called Belly Dance & clicking on its name will let you listen to it. This mp3 will removed from this blog on February 6, 2007.

Tomorrow I explain why I'm doing a show about owls. & no, it's not because I enjoy hunting mice at night.

1971 Haiku Wrap-Up - & More!

This is my first Monday post in a while, so I thought I'd do something slightly different that what I had previously been doing, which was printing the winning haikus from Friday's show. I'll still do that, but I thought I'd also add a couple of features to this already dynamic site. I only hope I can keep up.

First & foreleast, every day that I write something for the site (which is usually weekdays), I'll add a "Song Of The Day." Generally these "songs of the day" (& I hope I'll always put them in quotation marks) will be something I'm listening to when I write the blog. It may or may not contain information about the band or commentary from me, depending on whether I have time, inclination &/or anything to say. It will appear at the end of the blog post, & will be available for two weeks, after which time I'll remove it forever. I'll put its "due date" next to the links for those of you finding this years later with whatever searching apparatus that shall come after Google.

Secondly, a listener has decided he wants (anonymously) to contribute a limerick to the show every week. Let's see if he can live up to his promise. So in addition to haiku, there'll be a limerick, too. A Self Help Radio anthology surely cannot be far behind.

Thirdly, here's a picture of me kissing Oscar Wilde's grave in Paris. It's titled "Gary Gone Wilde." Har Har.





Now, the haiku winners:

FOURTH PLACE: Red

You give me a year
No one knows nor remembers
I have squat to say.

THIRD PLACE: Amelia

One nine seven one
Is too far away to see
Distantly life shrinks

SECOND PLACE: Jeanie

Are there an old year
Feeding spacetalk back at we?
Newyear talks louder.

FIRST PLACE: Carl

All the flowers born
In the rich sixties soil
Died in Vietnam.

Congrats to all! Want to know why these people are writing haikus? Click here to find out!

Here's the 1971 limerick from the Anonymous Limerickster:

In nineteen & seventy-one
The decade had not quite begun
Its profile so low
How could anyone know
The seventies would be such fun?

& now "The Song Of The Day".

All I know about this band is from their Allmusic Guide profile: Matson Jones is a Colorado band who contributed a creepily lovely song to last year's second volume of Alright, [sic] This Time Just The Girls Vol. 2. It's called "A Little Bit Of Arson", & you can click on the name to listen to it. This mp3 will be removed February 5, 2007.

This week's show is about owls. Owls! If you have a song request, a haiku, or even a limerick, email me!

I Answer Letters In 2007 Too!

I got this email, actually, in 2006. But it went like this:

Hi, Gary. I sometimes hear you on the radio saying this band or that band wrote the song for Self Help Radio. Does that mean anyone can write a song for Self Help Radio? Do you have to be your friend to write a song for your show? I am a local musician who might want to write a song for a theme next year... Please let me know.

This is a good question. Early in the summer of 2006, I asked a few folks in Austin (& a friend in Dallas) if they would like to write songs for the show, since they were creative as fuck & since I liked to hear the music they make. I also supposed, since I announce my themes far enough in advance, that there might be something that might inspire them in the future... Hopefully.

A few of my friends have decided to help - CJ Buchanan, Anonymouse, Energy Club, Luxuriator & the Licorice Whips, the Ramonalisas - but I understand that it's a lot of pressure to write a song on demand. I am extremely glad they're able to help me make me show as good as it is, & I am (as always) in awe of their tremendous talent.

But the letter writer above is someone I don't know, & why shouldn't I ask others to write songs for Self Help Radio? If you're able, why not Take The Self Help Radio Challenge? (I am in negotiations to see if Bill Cosby will host commercials for me.)

This is an open letter to musicians who would like to write songs to be played on my radio show.

Over on my website, selfhelpradio.net, I list a month's worth of upcoming themes. Some of them, obviously, you can't write a song for, especially if they're restrictive (this week's show, for example, is my favorite records of 1971 - you can't really write a song for that, can you? unless, of course, you're Lee Hazlewood & you already have). But if you'd like to write a song about Owls (next week's theme), you certainly can.

The best thing to do is to write me first & tell me your intention. I'd also recommend you listening to my show, if you haven't already, to see what kind of music I normally play. I don't want to be a dick, but if I don't like the song, I probably won't play it. So if you write music that wouldn't be out of place on an episode of Smallville, I probably won't think very much of it. But if it's indiepop - now we're talking! If a person says, "It sounds a lot like Wilco," I probably won't like it much. But if someone mistakes it for an Echo & The Bunnyman or Julian Cope song - wow wee!

If we talk & you want to write & record a song for Self Help Radio, you may send it to me via email as a decently-encoded (I prefer 192 kbps & up) mp3. (You can also send me copies of songs you've already recorded, if your song fits the theme.) You can click here to send me an email. The email address is also at the site.

The show airs Fridays from 4:30 to 6:00pm CST & can be accessed live at koop.org. I usually archive the show within a couple of weeks & put it on my site. By sending me the song, you're giving me permission to archive it. I may also use it to help KOOP raise funds - by giving it away on a CD as a premium for a membership drive. But otherwise, you own it & can do with it what you will. I will mainly be flattered you wrote a song for Self Help Radio!

It's now up to you. Are you a creative sort who writes songs in your head five times a day? Now's a chance to have someone hear a few of those songs. Let's start talking!

Whither 1971?

Another day stuck in the house while it's icy. When I was a kid, I loved these days. Now all I can think about is all the work that's piling up...

But enough about the goofy Texas weather. Why do a show about the year 1971? & what does that mean, anyway?

Travel back with me, if you will, to the dawn of Self Help Radio. I believe the show started in 2002 - but I'm not always sure. I'm not entirely sure where I was in 2002, so it could've been earlier. Or later. But I do know that I have a birthday, & that birthday happens around the middle of January pretty much every year (I still don't know what happened to my 15th birthday). I also know that I absolutely love to have date/event-specific shows - like my recently ended "favorites of the year" show & Christmas show, which happen every December. I wanted to do something to commemorate my birthday, especially since my friends, family, pets & insurance agents hardly ever remember it. Or if they remember it, they never commerorate it. If anything, they disrespect it. They set a box of dog poo on its doorstep & ignite it. Then they run away.

So, about four years ago (I think) I came up with the idear of using the show on the the week of my birthday as an opportunity to play my favorite music from the year of my birth - which was/is 1968 - & then slowly, year by year, move up a year as the week of my birthday happens. I did 1968. I did 1969. I did 1970. Somewhere along the line, I'm pretty sure I skipped a year (you can look through my playlists on my website if you want to be a completist) but I can't remember why. It must have been because of a particularly heavy George W. Bush State Of The Union Message. Or maybe that year my birthday laid me low. I will be 39 in a few days & I can't be expected to remember that far back. Plus, Austin is covered in melting ice. Can't you hear the drip drip drip?

This year, it's 1971. As a matter of course. What records came out in 1971? This list isn't by any means complete, but I used it as a starting place. I mean, who the hell knows the records they like by the year they came out?

I will not reveal what my favorite records of 1971 are today, but I will list a few records that I won't be playing (because I don't like them):

David Crosby: If I Could Only Remember My Name
Led Zeppelin: IV
Jethro Tull: Aqualung
Chicago: III
Emerson Lake & Palmer: Tarkus
Black Sabbath: Paranoid
Alice Cooper: Love It To Death
Yes: The Yes Album
Grand Funk Railroad: E Pluribus Funk
Rod Stewart: Every Picture Tells A Story

But I guess if you've heard my show it's not much of a surprise that I wouldn't play hard rock or prog rock or saccharine "adult contemporary" rock. There are other shows on KOOP who'll play that stuff.

Some stuff I won't play because, frankly, I won't have the time. I apologize, because these are good motherfucking records that make me wish my show were three hours long so I could honor them. These especially include the record "Mirror Man" by Captain Beefheart & "Faust" by Faust. The shortest song on either of those records is as long as one of my sets. Alas! Alack! What's a poor deejay to do? Apologize & move along.

As well, there as some records I may not play as a matter of principle. In particular, the Who's "Who's Next" is not necessarily a bad album, but half the songs are now theme songs to "CSI" television shows, so I don't much feel the need to play anything from that records. & it's got an absolutely awful album cover. Did anyone really ever think that was photo was cool? Really? While sober? Are they the same people who expected to turn the record over & find the same group of hairy British dudes who took a leak together to be blowing each other? Because I certainly did.

I may also play a single or two from a record that I don't really like. I'll let slip a secret: there's a record by an incredibly overrated band called the Doors that came out in 1971 called "L.A. Woman," & I've only listened to that record because I wanted to score with the chick who was playing it. But it does have my favorite Doors single on it, which is "Love Her Madly," & I'll probably play that. It's just a great goddamn song.

I'll talk a little about 1971, including updates as to what I was doing that year (I turned 3 & was just beginning to read symbolist poetry), so the music & the talk should make everyone feel like 1971 has returned. Happy birthday to me!

Preface to 1971: What The Hell?! It's Snowing In Austin?!

The past few days have been weird.

I caught a cold in Cambridge, which existed as sniffles as we trained our way (from Cambridge to King's Cross, King's Cross to Gatwick) to our flight. But once in the air, the seventeen-day plane ride (or was it fourteen years?) provided fertile ground for my sniffles to blossom into utter misery. I am guessing it had something to do with the fact that a good percentage of the passengers had some form of cold, & also that the rude bastard next to me seemed completely unable to cover his mouth when he hacked, which he did roughly ten times a minute. (I guess he doesn't have to worry about carpal tunnel.) I developed a sinus headache at thirty thousand feet, with the entire top row of my back teeth feeling like they were rotten to the very nerves. Helpful waitresses - er, stewardesses - er, flight attendants - informed me that they couldn't dispense medication, which made the reruns of "I Love Lucy" I was watching without sound even more unbearable than the fortieth time I watched them, when I was eight. With sound.

We arrived safe & warm in Dallas, last Thursday, & Magda gave me Nyquil pills & immediately I felt better. Why couldn't the waitresses on the plane give me medication? If my heart had stopped (Magda's sister pointed out) they are allowed to defibrolate me. Ah well. I will always self-medicate before any flight I take from now on.

A key word up there (keyword?) is the word "warm." It was nearly 70 degrees (Fahrenheit - in Europe, it'd be an unimpressive 18 or 19 degrees "Celsius"). Our hotel room in England wasn't that warm. We got the car & Magda drove me, all runny nosed & delerious, to my mom's, where we spent the night. I can't be sure, but the moms might have had the air conditioner on at her place. For fuck's sake.

After a medicated night's sleep, we drove home & I did my show with an adenoidal accent, & then the weekend came. It rained like a motherfucker on Friday night. (& by the way, as an idiom, the phrase "like a motherfucker" is easily translatable & even more easily exportable. I gave it to my friends in Belgium & I hope they are using it most agreeably.) It was insane. Temperatures dropped. & it got worse.

It's fucking snowing outside. Actually, it's more like it's raining/sleeting/snowing. Like a motherfucker. It's absolutely bugfuck crazy. They closed the University (so I didn't have to work - so my vacation is extended - it's like the damned Energizer Bunny, this vacation) & I've been sitting at home listening to music & occasionally wandering outside to let little pellets of frozen water bounce off my head. They may even close the school tomorrow, as well. Probably because Texans can't drive in the ice. But mainly because IT'S CRAZY THAT IT'S SNOWING IN AUSTIN.

My show this week has something to do with the year 1971, before they invented snow. Before, I believe, they invented Austin. I'll have to write about why I'm doing a show about 1971 tomorrow. I have an uncontrollable urge right now to go swat icicles off my eaves. Excuse me.

Last Day In Paris

Alas, my European vacation is drawing to a close. It might actually have been a little long, but Magda's work schedule kinda made it seem like two vacations in one: the days when Gary was out & about by hisself & the days when the two young(ish) lovers wandered the city trying desperately to find places on confusing street maps.

Seriously, Europeans, a word: The "signs on the sides of buildings" thing is neat & all, but a pole with two signs in a road couldn't cost very much & makes a hell of a lot more sense.

Anyway, the vacation's not quite over - we still have to abscond from Paris & spend a day & night in Cambridge (more fossil hunting - I'll probably just sleep the train ride off) & then it's back to the States. I might have more to say in the future, but here are some random thoughts:

- Austin needs a bakery on nearly every corner. Seriously, it improves the mind & the spirit. The aroma it imparts to the neighborhood alone is worth it.

- Paris (like Basel) is a smokers' town. DO NOT COME HERE if you've quit smoking in, oh, the last few months. God damn it. Not that I smoked - truly, I'm done with that habit - but DAMN when you see the cafes full of smokers you long for that deadly, delicious cancer stick. Which begs the question: don't they get the same medical information as we do? Are they just being contrary? Ah, the French.

- Paris is also a tremendously diverse place, more than I at least thought. Not everyone is beautiful, although the chicks in the Latin Quarter truly are, but the inhabitants look like they come from all over. I have been a little flattered when, walking alone, someone spoke French to me. I had to say "Je ne parle pas francais," but it felt sweet to be mistaken for a Parisian.

- We got extremely lucky - it was never stupefyingly cold while we were here. It was even sunny on Sunday, when we visited Pere Lachaise & I got to make out with Oscar Wilde's grave. But I really want to come back here when it's a springish time. Although the lines will probably be longer then.

- It's probably no surprise (& really no secret) that I don't sleep well, but most certainly a sleeping plan to follow for the future is EXHAUSTION. When you spend an entire day wandering around, waiting in lines, transferring from different Metro stops, & limping home, a little dehydrated & utterly worn out, it's very easy to get horizontal & fall into a completely rejuvenating & dreamless sleep.

- Travelling a lot on trains is fertile ground for those who wish to become Sudoko masters. Or even those who don't, as I found out.

This Friday I will hopefully be back in Austin in time to resume the ridiculousness of Self Help Radio & I once again thank Lisa & Jay for keeping the show warm while I was away. This week I will be playing songs with the phrase "brand new" somewhere within, attempting to start Self Help Radio off in a "brand new year." You may certainly send requests & ideas to me.

A bientot!

European Son

Greetings from Paree! It's unseasonably mild here & the sun has come out for a little while. I will spend the day alone looking at art & trying not to get dehydrated.

I am in Europe following my girlfriend Magda around as she does her anthropological research. We spent a few days in London, one day in Oxford, the New Year's weekend in Ghent & Brussels (Belgium), a dull day in Basel (Switzerland) (well, it was dull for me - I think she got some good fossils there), & made it to Paris late last night.

The most surreal moment for me was doing laundry in Ghent, in an empty laundromat on New Year's Day, & hearing "Eye Of The Tiger" blasting out of the radio there. What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a place where the music being played on the radio is generally not in the language you speak? Are there psychological studies about that? In general, I find it comforting, but would prefer better music.

I don't like to plan too much for these kinds of trips - or really any trips at all - maybe I don't want to be too overbooked or overwhelemed or maybe I am incapable of making a decision on what to do - so I find things like enjoying simply watching the countryside go by on the two train trips we took the past couple of days to be time well spent. I sometimes envy the folks who go to weird parties or who sneak into famous landmarks but I know I am not one of them. So my experiences, though nice for me, are probably pretty banal & not worthy of a travelogue. This blog is about a radio show, anyway.

With all this travelling, you find simple pleasures - like getting a good night's sleep, staying hydrated (Europeans like their water with bubbles for some weird reason, & if you ask for "still water," you're looked at as though you enjoy drinking mud) & finding good food to eat - to be the most rewarding, although I am of course impressed with things like seeing Christchruch in Oxford or Westminster & Big Ben in London - I like to see the things I've spent years reading about in books. I will try to find my way around Paris today, but I have a penchant for getting lost in cities when I have no one to show me around. Look for me on cartons of imported French milk.

So I should say a public thank you to Mark in East London & Annelies in Ghent - they made our stay in those cities very comfortable & fun. I only regret we couldn't see Mark more - he knows his part of the city & he wanted to show Magda the Jack the Ripper trail. & I fear we overstayed our welcome with Annelies, who was as gracious a hostess as anyone could ever find. Her friends, too, were amazing. One of the weirdest things they tended to do is, if you were standing next to them while they were talking, even if they weren't addressing you, they'd speak in English. For no real reason except to be polite. I found that devastatingly sweet.

What's next? Two days in Paris, then the weekend in Barcelona, then back to Paris for a couple of days, then Cambridge for a day, then a long plane ride home. I'll be around (I hope) a week from Friday to do the show on its regular time.

Meanwhile, those of you who heard should report how Lisa did last week - I'm sure it was amazing, but I'd like to know just how amazing - & be sure to listen to Jay "Lounge Show" Robillard tomorrow doing Self Help Radio.

If I get beaten up by a mime or if I'm implicated in an American plot to insult the parents of the Mona Lisa, I'll let you know.

Sad News In Swinging London

Damn.

This always seems to happen. I was in New York City when Ray Charles died, & right before I left for Europe, I get word that the Godfather of Soul has left us. MOTHERFUCKER.

If this were a just world, a world where greatness was truly respected,we would shrug off the deaths of evil fucks like Reagan (who died right after Ray Charles did, so the headlines were overwhelmingly focused on that clown) & Gerald Ford (who died right after Soul Brother No. 1) & the death of someone like James Brown - whom you celebrate, whether you know it or not, every time you dance to something funky - would result in a national day of mourning.

God bless you, James Brown. You touched the world more than you knew, & you KNEW a lot.

This is a short note from London. The city itself at the end of 2006 is not terribly cold but it is grey & crowded. Crowded! Tomorrow it's off to Cambridge & then Belgium.

Be sure to listen to Self Help Radio tomorrow - Lisa of the Clear Spot will be guest-hosting!

I Answer The Last Letter I'll Answer In 2006!

It's true, I won't be answering any more mail this year. In fact, that's what this letter, from someone named Justin, was about:

Hey gary, why are you having subs for two weeks this month?

Because I will be going on vacation for a couple of weeks. Plus, it's not two weeks this month - it's the last Friday of December & the first Friday of January. Don't you own a calendar?

But I won't be leaving you with just any substitutes: next Friday, the amazing Lisa of The Clear Spot will be subbing SHR, & the week after that, the great Jay Robillard will be subbing. They've both picked great themes: Lisa will do a show about "missing" & Jay's show will feature songs about onomatopoeia.

I will be in Europe & I may blog a little from there, if what I've heard is true, there might be some places that have the internet. Keep looking!

I'll be back to the regular blogging after my January 12th show. You can keep writing me emails!

Whither Christmas?

That's a heavy question, man. Whither Christmas? What does "whither" mean, anyway? Do I even know? Yes, I know. & if I didn't know, why the fuck would I begin every Wednesday posting with the word? Don't I know there's a dictionary.com? Will I continue to ask a bunch of questions here only I can answer? Since I am the only one writing, I mean. I don't presume that you can answer because you can't really. Except in the comments section. So maybe I should write a bunch of questions & you can answer them. But what if you don't? Won't this already piss-poor blog seem even more pathetic? Is that really possible?

Surely someone listens to Self Help Radio. Even if that someone is my mother, who can't listen because she lives two hundred miles away & doesn't have a computer. Also, she's German. She does perhaps listen to recordings of the shows that I send her, but she is, after all, German. Anyway, if I am writing to a generic "listener," & that listener isn't my mother, to whom am I writing? I don't normally drink a lot before I write anything, so I can't be hallucinating, although I do sometimes have lucid dreams when I am really exhausted. Have I ever dreamed about writing stuff in this blog? I don't remember either way, but I have dreamed about finding my house rearranged in ways that are not structurally possible. Therefore, I believe the way that reality can be manipulated in dreams in such a way that makes a kind of irrational sense is the same way I should perceive the readership of this blog. You are the reader of my dreams.

Now, since someone listens to Self Help Radio & also reads this blog, at least in sleepytimeland, there is therefore the presumption that they are intriqued about why I choose the topics I choose. But surely this hypothetical reader is not a complete & total moron. Are you? You can at least read, right? Do you know what "whither" means? Have you ever read anything by Walt Whitman? I'm sure he said "whither" all the time. He was probably in the middle of a Washington DC hospital & he'd be like, "Excuse me, doctor, whither the lavoratory?" & the doctor was like, "Jesus Christ, Walt, it's the fucking 19th century, can't you talk like a modern man?" & Walt was all like, "Ooo, she's upset, isn't she?"

My sharp reader might notice that I used the word "whither" in the above sentence to mean something different than I use it to mean in the titles of my Wednesday posts. That's because I was trying to make you doubt your own understanding of the word's meaning. Did it work? Or did you think it was a lame, debate-team-ish move that deserves only scorn? "Whither" can mean "to where" both figuratively & literally. I use it figuratively; Walt Whitman used it literally when he was hitting on doctors.

To continue: you're not a moron & you're aware that it's the week before Christmas & some deejays enjoy - nay, feel compelled - to do Christmas shows. Some do them way too much. Some of them play that fucking Bruce Springsteen "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" song like it's some kind of classic & not the exact song they played at Abu Ghraib right before they sicced the dogs on the prisoners' legs. Seriously, I could take any amount of Windham Hill Christmas shit over that Springsteen travesty. I'm surprised it doesn't routinely clear malls. In a world where people weren't force-fed music on commercial radio, it would. & Springsteen would find himself lynched by the first group that ran into him.

In sum: it's the week before Christmas & I am doing the Christmas show I always do. But when I say "I always do," I don't mean, "I am playing the same recordings I usually play," like deejays who are less inventive than myself do. No, every song I play Friday will be a song I have never played before. & it will be a magical holiday show for the entire family. Or maybe not for your grandfather. He takes himself way too seriously. Put some valium in his egg nog - only then will he be truly able to digest my world-famous Christmas show.

You'll do fine, though.

Preface To Christmas 2006: Ho Is Short For What?

I don't know why I love Christmas music. I wasn't raised religious & Christ isn't my lord & savior. I grew up in Dallas, Texas, where Jesus may vacation, but where it can get cold but it rarely snows, & never enough to ride sleds or skate. We were lucky if a snowman lasted more than three hours. I have no real clue why the fuck I love Christmas music so much.

All I know is, I ain't the only one. Have you seen the amount of Christmas music out there? Someone is buying the John Tesh/Green Day Xmas Extravaganza. I think perhaps the reason so many people loathe Christmas music is because of the sheer volume of it. I would venture a guess that the amount of schlocky Christmas music outnumbers the amount of sincere religious music (hymns & what-not) written for the Baby Jesus by tenfold. If not more. For example: John Denver produced fifty-nine Christmas records during the 1970s alone. (Eighteen were with the muppets, of course, & at least thirteen were with Satan.)

Oh, & there are a lot of Christmas music blogs, too. I couldn't link to them all. (Or I could, but I'm lazy.) Most of them, as you might imagine, are the sort that collect the treacly commercial Christmas pap you've heard you're entire life - Celine Dion's Wonderful Chanukah Memories & An Elton John Kwanzaa, for example - but there are some skewed gems out there. I have surfed a few of them - I am in awe at some folks' OCD natures & their need to find that Quick Draw McGraw Christmas Song at all costs.

(I hope there's a Quick Draw McGraw Christmas Song - I don't know if there is. But it's very sad to note the passing of someone who was very important to me in my childhood - Joe Barbera. While I don't really have much interest anymore in Hanna-Barbera cartoons - with the exception of their early Tom & Jerry - I did eat them up as a child, from the Flintstones to Scooby Doo to Laff-A-Lympics. Goodbye & thank you, Joseph Barbera, for enriching my childhood so much.)

Okay, things got heavy for a second. Where was I? I might have been wanting to explain why people love Christmas music so much - above the obvious, people who are celebrating their faith - but I did start out asking why I like Christmas music so much. I don't know. I do know that I like it just enough - that too much is really too much. People who have been playing Christmas music since just after Thanksgiving are doing it a disservice. The Law Of The Conservation Of Music Quality (which holds that 99% of most of the music produced will suck hard, & that 99% of the people who consume the sucky music will like it because it's overplayed) applies to Christmas music, too. Good Christmas music can be ruined by too much repetition. Producers of radio out there, I beg of you! Only one Christmas show per year! If you must!

So why do I like Christmas music so much? I think it's for three reasons:

1) There are a finite number of famous songs that can be made & remade - & remixed - a billion ways. Most of these songs have gorgeous melodies. They are familiar but you can still be surprised.

2) Christmas is rife with possibilities for absurd songs in the way a holiday like Halloween is, & in exactly the sort of way that a holiday like Easter is not. Plus, everyone eventually writes a song about Christmas. Sometimes without even knowing it.

3) In both cases, self-importance & pompousness (for whatever reason - ego, bloated religiosity, incompetence) can easily trump the lack of talent & often even the message. That's delicious.

So I like Christmas music. Is that why I do a Christmas show every year? I'll answer that tomorrow.

2006 Haiku Wrap Up

My first show in KOOP's snazzy new studios went very well, & should be up on the Self Help Radio website by the end of the day today. This week's show - which I will of course talk about enlessly on this blog - will be my world-famous Christmas show. By world-famous, of course, I mean that my mother enjoys it. She taught me what "world-famous" means. (It means that your mother enjoys it. Right?)

Last week's show was made up of my favorite songs of 2006 & it would have been absurd (though, come to think of it, not entirely unlike me) to ask you to write a haiku about my favorite songs, so I suggested you write about the year 2006. Most of you, instead, opted to write about the year ending. This is what you nice folks sent me, & how they ranked, from fourth to first.

FOURTH PLACE: Carla

I guess this year sucked
But I’m used to them sucking
I didn’t notice

THIRD PLACE: Lauren

Piano keys held
All weight on crushing fingers
Last chord of the year

SECOND PLACE: Gabriel

Darker earlier
Insert your own metaphor
I’m going to bed

FIRST PLACE: John

Leaves fall, the year ends
Time swirls down the gutter in
Warm December rain

Ach, ye hade the touch o' the poet this week, dintcha now?

If you are in the mood to write a holiday haiku, visit the Self Help Radio haiku page for more information & to send a haiku. It's better than being published!

Answering Letters Is All I Know How To Do Baby!

It's Thursday, it's time for another dip into the Self Help Radio emailbox. This email is from someone called Ms. X. She writes:

GARY! Why don't you do more electronic shows??? People love it!!

Yes, Gary. Why don't you do more shows that maybe will bring in an underserved audience & maybe even net you a little notoriety as "that dude who does the way cool electronica show on KOOP"? Instead of what you're known as now, if you're known at all - as that guy who talks too much on that weird show on Fridays. What up?

I guess I'm being stubborn. I listen to & love a lot of electronica - but I like other stuff, too. I've subbed a lot of shows at KOOP, from the reggae show to the "punk" show, & hopefully I did a good job, because I like a lot of music from a lot of different genres. Being trapped in one genre would be... I dunno... Scary. Sad. Even if ithe genre deserved its own radio show, which I totally think it does.

I am involved with the Training Committee at KOOP, & I have encouraged newcomers who are interested in electronica to get involved at KOOP & work toward getting a show. But KOOP doesn't just give you a show if you have a good idea & show up - you have to become involved in this all-volunteer org. & some people don't have the time to give, so they drift away. Alas! Alack! A really good electronic show is much needed in this town - & I don't really know of one. Do you?

I'll try to tailor my themes to fit more electronica in, but I'll keep Self Help Radio the way I've always done it, because it suits me to show off as much as what I love as I can. Do keep listening, though. Robots will win in the end, unless the zombies get them first.

Wanna ask me a question? No? I'll let you call me names! Yeah! Email me!

Whither My Favorite Music Of 2006?

I wrote yesterday about "best of" lists & ended the post with a question: Why is my "best of" list better than anyone else's?

The answer is: it isn't. It's just mine. That's the reason it was called "best of" last year but this year is called "Gary's favorite."

I am fascinated by people's opinions because we have the desperate need to defend them as if not liking what we like &/or not thinking what we think is an utter rejection of us as a fellow human. (& if it's not believing what we believe - people kill for that shit.) I love to read music & movie & tv reviews that contain opinions wildly different from mine - & those that have ones that are in total agreement with mine - if & only if the reviewers explain themselves. There are reasons for pretty much everything, & thoughtful people will graciously explain why they feel the way they do, & I love a decently reasoned argument.

It's one of my great struggles to not make my opinions sound like they have the force of facts, although I can be dismissive & condescending with the best (the worst) of them. Opinions are never facts, but they approach factness (to an observer/listener) when the reasoning behind the opinion is strongest. So, for example, you may really love the newest Britney's Destiny's Lindsay song on the radio, but if all you have to say about it is that it's catchy, I'm probably not going to pay much attention to it - I believe that commercial radio plays the same thing over & over just to get it lodged in your head, & therefore your observation of it as "catchy" isn't much of a defense. If you, on the other hand, explain the song in terms of the evolution of pre-fab pop from the Brill Building to Motown to Bubblegum to trends in synthetic soul in the 80's & 90's, well, I'll be impressed, but I probably still won't like it. But I'll understand you like it because of some predisposition toward corporate music creation. I'll be able to understand why you like what you like.

Which also mean that I have a sense of what you like &, with more opinions, I'll be able to gauge whether or not we have anything in common - & then I can start treating your opinions as guideposts, telling me whether I'd like something or not.

There are people whose opinions I am completely in disagreement with, but whose reasons are compelling. I like reviewers like that a lot. Sometimes more than the people I agree with more than 90% of the time.

I probably won't be explaining myself too terribly much on Friday - instead, I'll be playing music I like & hope you'll like it, too. (I mean, I always do that, but this is about what I liked best from this year.) In the end, opinions can lead you somewhere, but you have to make your own mind up. If the music I like sucks, any urging on my part won't help. & however glowing my reviews, if it's great - & it is - I can never do it justice with mere words.

Someone wrote & asked if I wanted to end "best of" lists. I don't really care. Most people who make those sorts of lists are either doing it because they feel obligated, or they're egotists anyway. Just remember: they're just a list of things people like. They're not supposed to make you feel bad, or feel like you should make your own list. Just read - or in the case of my show, listen - & feel how you want to feel.

Preface To Gary's Favorite Music Of 2006: What Is A Best Of List & How Does One Avoid Them?

Boy, best of lists make people mad. People argue over best of lists all the time, it's freaky. I was thinking the first real bust-up about a best of list is when that Moses guy showed all of his friends his "Best Laws From The Mountaintop" list & they were like, "We only have one law, & it's that the Golden Calf - it rules!" & he was like, "Fuck you, you die!" I guess I shouldn't be so mad, then, when a pal & I disagree on what Dylan's best songs are - at least he's not killing every third male I know.

I love best of lists, not because I care whether someone agrees with me or not - I do like it, like everyone else, when people like what I play on my show - but because I like to read people explain why they like stuff. Since taste is the science of opinion, the supporting "evidence" is more important. You might not think much of Brian Wilson - & I don't, he does next to nothing for me - but the evidence suggest that he's important, since a vast majority of people who really listen to music (contrasted with those for whom music may be something they like & use to pass the time, but they don't go any deeper than that) think he's very important in the history of recording. You're allowed to have your opinion, & there's no right or wrong - but you'll be (with me) in the minority.

Unfortunately, the world's a lot more complicated since Pet Sounds, & there's much, much more music out there, with as many songs written per day as there are myspace pages going up. The best of lists that'll soon be popping up, if they haven't already, will be filled with what you'd expect: Dylan's new record, either Neil Young's new one or the Fillmore East rerelease, Tom Waits' new collection, the new project by the White Stripes dude, & if there's a noteworthy comeback or if there's a flavor of the year (this year's Bloc Party or Franz Ferdinand), they'll be on it, too.

They won't be on any 2006 best of lists because they are good, although some (a small fraction) might have their merits. No, nothing Neil Young, Bob Dylan or Tom Waits can do at this point in their careers will ever match the greatness of their earlier stuff. They are rasping, gasping shadows of their former selves & it's our devoted dog love that makes us see them live & buy their records & force them down our throats. I love that humans are sentimental - I can be the same way, too, so I'm not trying to say it's in & of itself a bad thing - but every spin of a dinosaur's attempt to make himself richer drowns out all those bands that deserve their moment in your field of vision (or hearing). Not because they're better than the best of these old farts - some of them are trying to sound exactly like the best of those old farts - but because what they're doing now has more vibrancy, more vitality, more soul than the retreads those old bastards are selling you.

I'm not pretending I'm telling you anything new, of course. As for the flavors du jour - your White Stripes, for example - they might be worth paying attention to, but the truth is, they got lucky & were squeezed past the exclusive front rope at the Corporate Radio Bullshit Club & as long as they pay their dues, they'll get to be on the charts with the small community of People Who Get Rich Being Musicians. Usually that means whatever got them there in the first place will quickly be stamped out. I sometimes pay attention - I mentioned last week, I did listen to the new Flaming Lips - but while I feel some bands deserve to have a certain notoriety, what their doing is usually no longer terribly interesting. Maybe it's the direction they've taken, or maybe it's the sameness of their "innovation." Either way, it leaves me bored. But I was talking about lists.

Most of the critics who make these best of lists don't actually go out & buy records, you know. Maybe - maybe - some of them are actually fans & maybe they spend their big bucks on older records - but the vast majority of them get their records for free, from record companies that can afford to print thousands of comps. (I shouldn't complain - a lot of the employees of the places that hire these critics get copies, too, & put them out there for downloaders to sample a long time before they're commercially available, & that's awesome!) So they're not listening to anything more than a small fraction of what's released that year, & they are paying attention to the Grammy Mentality - "it has made money, therefore it's important." Hooray! Justin Timberlake is a Artist!

Think about this when you see the "Best Of 2006" lists. Even from cool folks like the your local alternative weekly. They get tons of shit for free you bet. We're human - that influences us like campaign donations influence politicians. & when you have nothing to listen to but the free shit you get from Big Corporations, you'll find something you like in it. But there's so much more.

I'll have some of that so much more Friday. But why is my "best of" better than anyone else's? I'll defend myself tomorrow.

Screw The Haiku Wrap-Up - KOOP's In Its New Digs!

Wow. It feels like a million years ago (tho it's been barely twelve months) since KOOP's downtown studio was trashed by two fires in one month - so it seems like a hazy, hopeful dream suddenly, astonishly realized that KOOP is now broadcasting from its new location at 3823 Airport Blvd. There's media about it videowise from a local news station & printmediawise from a local newspaper. Incredible.

So my show this Friday will be aired from the new space. & space is the word - the deejay booth ("studio one" the esteemed Thomas Durnin calls it in the video interview above) is larger than two living rooms. The equipment is state of the art, & KOOP's illustrious Training Team worked double overtime for more than a week to get the current programmers up to speed.

If you only know me as the fellow what does "Self Help Radio," you don't really know my commitment to & complete love of the radio station at which I volunteer. The fact is, like other KOOP volunteers, I am often accused by my partner of "cheating" with KOOP - that's how deep the love goes. I hope some of you have a chance to visit the new place - especially those of you who've helped us financially in the past year. Your money went a long way, & we owe you the deepest debt of gratitude. We hope we can pay it off with great programming from now until radio is replaced by futuristic cerebral thought/music implants. Or at the very least tricorders.

Last week's show was my favorite electronica of the year - but during the show, at which I was giving away CDs of the electronica I was playing, we went off the air for the last third of my show. If you were hoping to win one of the CDs, but couldn't because you weren't listening online, please send me an email & I'll see about finding a fair way to get some of the music to you. Or you can wait until the end of the day, when the entire show will be saved in tasty, bite-sized mp3 on the archive section of the Self Help Radio website. It should be there before 5pm, I promise.

This week's show is my favorite music of 2006 oh boy. Write a haiku about 2006 for that show! Here are the haikus (I only got three) from this week:

THIRD PLACE: Doug

I am a dance floor.
Somebody needs to mop me.
Add a coat of wax.

SECOND PLACE: Amy

The robots one day
Will attempt to talk to us
In beeps & in beats.

FIRST PLACE: David

You can’t dance to this
It makes you feel bare & cold
Electronica.

Congrats all. Tomorrow: who makes "best of" lists, & why?

I May Be An Idiot, But I Answer Another Letter!

Here is a nice letter from someone named Scot with one t:

Gary, I like that you are doing a show about electronica but I thought I would ask -- why do you like electronica? I am not a big fan myself but I like to ask people why they like it. Do you mind??

I don't mind, but you should know there's a story behind it. It begins (as everything does) in the womb.

That's not true! It begins around the time I learned to read. I loved reading, & I read everything. & when I discovered music, I focused not on the music itself, but on the words. It made perfect sense that the music I loved tended to have words that were silly, or clever, or just deep enough that I could waste time thinking about what they meant. (An example is the song "Rocket Man" by Elton John - as an eight-year-old I was fascinated by the idea of a "rocket man" as a job "five days a week." Or in John Lennon's "Come Together" - the obvious of "one & one & one is three" baffled me in a delightful way.)

So when songs like the ones I played in my Brief History Of Sampling show started to come about, I was far more interested in the samples than the music. Though, let's be honest here - I had already made a decision about the music. I rejected commercial crap pretty quickly, & that included metal, synthetic "soul," & mainstream "country" music. So I did care about the music in its way, but I might not have liked a record of, say, Cure instrumentals as much as The Head On The Door.

Somewhere in my early-to-late twenties, I started listening to jazz. Jazz teaches you a vocabulary of something other than words, & if you start (like I did) with early jazz & Big Band, they sneak it at you, first with songs with singers, then slowly eliminating the singers entirely.

Finding electronic music, samples & all, intriguing, & having a small but growing background in jazz, set me up for what came later - hanging around people who love electronica. I worked in a place where we fought over the background music - it was a video store - & lots of the music a couple of the clerks played was electronic. I was in a position where, to listen to what I liked, I had to spend some time listening to what the other workers liked. As is usually the case when the music is good, I discovered I really liked a lot of what the others liked. & they weren't listening to "house" or "techno" - it was electronica that wasn't made for dancing. (Amusingly, this is called IDM, or intelligent dance music.)

After that, my own scavenging obsessive nature took over, & now, even without the vocals, I listen to a lot of electronica. Since I am verbally-oriented, it's great to listen to when I am doing something like writing. Or when it's late & dark & your thoughts are your own. Or, of course, when you wanna dance.

& yeah, a lot of electronica still has words. But most of what I'll play tomorrow does not.

Thanks for the letter! Anyone can write me anything!

& if you're still reading: I have recently put up last week's show, & two recent subbing gigs - the Elk Mating Show & the Lounge Show in German - on my archive page. Go have a listen!

Whither Gary's Favorite Electronica 2006?

Yeah, spill it. Why do you do one entire show on electonica & another show which (presumably) will contain your favorite rock, indie, indiepop, comedy, jazz, hiphop, country, kazzo music, show tunes, hardcore metal, hardcore pornography, & Christian music? What makes electronica so fucking special? Hunh?

I know you don't really care, but it's sweet of you to ask.

It's primarily because I really do listen to a lot of electronic music, but I hardly ever play it on my show. Why don't I play it more? There are a lot of reasons, but the two main ones are these:

1) I kinda like my shows to be quick, quirky & upbeat; a lot of the electronica I listen to is, unlike the common idea of electronic music, not really "dancey" or "beat-driven." Some of it is, but sometimes I am forced between sticking a gorgeously beautiful (but slow) electronic piece in the middle of two ridiculously bouncy indiepop songs or not playing it at all. A lot of the time, I forgo the electronic piece.

2) Since my shows are based on themes, & since a lot of electronic pieces are instrumental, the only way a lot of them can fit the theme is for the title of the piece to relate somehow. But electronica performers love to title their songs with silly words, made-up words, nonsense words. It makes it hard to attach them to a piece.

As an example, here's a track listing from a record by a prominent electronic artists, Autechre, who don't have a record out this year, but who were on my "best of" last year.

Xylin Room
IV VV IV VV VIII
61e.CR
Tapr
Surripere
Theme of Sudden Roundabout
VL Al 5
P.:Ntil
V-Proc
Reniform Puls

I'll work on my show about "V-Proc" just as soon as I find other songs about it. Any other song. Maybe I'll write eighty minutes worth of songs about it.

I should also point out (since I made the argument myself, I can easily rebut myself, sucka!) that the situation with having one day for electronica & another day for "everything else" is kind of misleading, since I don't really listen to "everything else." I pay almost no attention to commercial rock, pop, country, hiphop or soul. I don't listen to a whole lot of world music or jazz, & most of what I listen to of that is usually older when I get to it. Bands that a lot of people think of as alternative - like the Flaming Lips, let's say - I will still check out, but usually (I've found) critics & others tend to find their work exceptional because it's decent (& better than the majority of commercial radio crap), but they haven't heard everything else out there - they're really not digging deep enough. What my "favorite music of 2006" will doubtless focus on is indie rock, indiepop & some other stuff generally in that genre. The other stuff, like I said, I usually get to later. To my eternal shame.

There isn't enough time!

By the way, I found a website which apparently rates every album released during the year, although I'm not sure how. It's got a thousand album that came out this year listed (astonishing!). (The website is rateyourmusic.com.) Here are the top twenty:

01 "Ys" Joanna Newsom
02 "Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards" Tom Waits
03 "Ashes Against The Grain" Agalloch
04 "Blood Mountain" Mastodon
05 "American V: A Hundred Highways" Johnny Cash
06 "A Matter Of Life & Death" Iron Maiden
07 "The Crane Wife" The Decemberists
08 "No Heroes" Converge
09 "10,000 Days" Tool
10 "The Drift" Scott Walker
11 "Return To Cookie Mountain" TV On The Radio
12 "Modern Times" Bob Dylan
13 "Score: 20th Anniversary World Tour" Dream Theater
14 "With Oden On Our Side" Amon Amarth
15 "Okonokos" My Morning Jacket
16 "Live At The Fillmore East" Neil Young
17 "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" Bruce Springsteen
18 "The Great Cold Distance" Katatonia
19 "Pure Reason Revolution" The Dark Third
20 "The Life Pursuit" Belle & Sebastian

Like with any kind of list - especially an anonymous one - it's important to take such conclusions with a grain or twelve of salt - but this list is especially intriguing for the weirdness of the amount of what I guess is hardcore or metal (eight, or nine if you count The Dark Third, which is a prog band) & the fact that Scott Walker's new record is tenth. Two of the records are by musicians who I feel are utterly irrelevant & I wish they'd stop making music & retire to their estates (Dylan & Springsteen), & two are basically re-releases or posthumous collections (Young & Cash). I reserve the right to withhold judgment on Tom Waits, although his last few records have been pretty dull. So I'll listen to the new one eventually - I just can't believe it'll make my favorites list.

In fact, there's only one record in that list that'll make my favorites. It's easy to know which one that is, especially if you know I don't really like TV On The Radio or My Morning Jacket, & that I found the new Decemberists record incredibly disappointing.

What is it? Find out a week from Friday. This week, though, it's all about the electronica.

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.