The Self Help Radio Memorial Day Memorial

Memorial Day was founded in 1492 by Columbus in Columbus, Ohio, to mark his ability to sail a ship across the Appalachians. That was something to remember. Today, I remember the following things:

- I remember where I hid the cookies!
- I remember that I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow & she said I shouldn't eat cookies for two days before the appointment.
- I forget what the doctor said.
- I remember the delicious taste of cookies.
- I remember that occasionally (or maybe all the time) people die for something they call "a country."
- I remember whenever I am driving anywhere in the United States that there are lots & lots of empty spaces which are separated from the roads & the cars & the people in the cars by fences.
- I remember that that means that someone owns all of that.
- I hope that the people who are dying for this country maybe own some of that space behind the barbed wire, or else, well, it's kinda silly, you know?
- I remember that the people who own a lot of the country don't have to die for it, since they can afford to pay people to do it for them.
- I remember why I am depressed all the time.
- I remember where I hid the heroin!
- I am glad that I have a day off.
- I... Zzzzzz...

A Morrissey Adventure!

Hey! What if Morrissey were a pirate? Or a superhero? Or a stylish undercover cop busting heads in a corrupt town only he could clean up? Or a space-hero, fighting off invading alien hordes with two laser guns & a microphone?

Okay, none of that sounds fun at all. But I will tell you that, today on Self Help Radio, I'll be celebrating Morrissey's solo career with songs he's recorded since the Smiths fell down & hit their head & died, plus I'll be playing fabulous covers of Morrissey's solo songs by people who wish they were as fabulous as Morrissey, as well as songs that Morrissey himself has covered during his very long solo career. He's been releasing records as "Morrissey" for almost twenty years now; the Smiths existed for maybe a quarter that. Amazing.

I have a special treat for creepy Morrissey fans, available only over the Memorial Day weekend. If you go to the Self Help Radio webpage & click on the link that says Morrissey Contest, & write me an email about how much you like Morrissey, you could win a Morrissey tribute CD that I will make myself with only a sponge & a rusty spanner. (Actually, it'll be pretty much the music I play on the show - without all my blabbing in-between.) It's the way one Morrissey fan shows his love for other Morrissey fans.

So tune in, you sad bastard! I won't let you forget the songs that made your cry, or the songs that saved your life!

The Flabby & The Fastidious

A moral to this story might be: do you care about your blog? Do you want it to be a good blog, full of righteousness & collectible bonus points, or would you rather your blog be a kleenex you might use to wipe away sadness & indiscretion?

Can a moral be a question? There's no question we have a problem with morals. I have no stories to tell that don't involve a fox, a man-whore & the Fromberg, Montana, Glee Club Rejects. Except for this one:

A man, his man-whore, & two former members of the Fromberg, Montana, Glee Club, were sitting in a bar daydreaming about the way things sometimes are, when in walked the most devastatingly beautiful fox they'd ever seen...

No, that one has a man-whore, a fox & the Glee Club rejects in it. I guess it's come to this: I'm all out of stories.

Which reminds me of a dude I used to know named Charlie Shuttle. Charlie was the hippest cat to ever hustle pool or contradict authority the old backwash of a city called Garland, Texas, had ever seen. Snap! That was the sound Charlie made when he got you in a headlock because you were messing with his girl & he'd just pop that top vertebrae out & you were crippled for life. Snap! Charlie Shuttle didn't get in trouble because his dad was Police Chief & his mom was the town drunk. So he had all his bases covered, if you know what I mean. Snap! Guess you'll think twice again, wheelchair man, before you give ol' Charlie Shuttle the stinkeye one more time. Snappity snap!

I wasn't friends with Charlie Shuttle, but I did subscribe to his magazine. He died in an electrical fire on a solar panel after falling thirteen stories from a windmill during the 1986 meltdown at the Garland nuclear reactor. Some idiot tried to save him by tossing him into a pile of coal, but a natural gas line burst & he suffocated to death. There was a sad irony, though - his parents decided to bury him on their family farm outside Granbury, but what should happen while they were digging the grave - they struck oil!

I know, I shouldn't lecture you, but sometimes you're as dense as a dense thicket. Why are we friends, anyway?

Whither A Show About Morrissey?

Yea, but the man is like unto a god to me. Nay, not because of his grand homosexuality nor his snarky wit. Nay, not because Wilde is on his side, while only Bowie is on mine. Yea, he simply spake what was true in my ugly, lonely, yearning little shell of a heart. In ways that no one else could, set to music, something true to dance to, did Morrissey seduce me. So I honor him completely & utterly.

I'm so glad to have grown up & am now able to say, "Oh, I don't like this," etc. Blind worship is for limited intelligences. I ignored him while his career fell apart in the mid to late 90's because he wasn't making very good music. I thrilled two years ago to his comeback, & was disappointed by his most recent record. But for the first time in my life, I'll get to see him live this Saturday. You'll get to hear music by him, covers of his solo work, & songs he's covered while solo. No! No Smiths! Stop living in the past, you Morrissey you!

Live for this Friday. Then dance with me on Saturday.

Preface To A Show About Morrissey: If He Cancels Again I'll Just Die!

I have this dread feeling when it comes to people whom I admire greatly that, if left alone with them, I wouldn't be able to say anything & they'd dislike me immediately. This is partially why I have become such great friends with Scott McLellan. Part of me wants to say it'd be different with Morrissey, but everyone thinks they'd have a great relationship with Morrissey. It's not like people who become friends with Elvis Costello, then come to loathe him because of his current wife. Morrissey's wife is, I'm told, very down to earth. Like June Cleaver with chest hair. She uses all parts of the tofu when she cooks it. She is, it has been widely reported, the sort of girl you'd bring home to meet mother. Not father. Mother.

I have never met Morrissey, & I won't when he comes to town this week. But I feel like I really, really know him. Not like that asshole Johnny Marr. Do I get a sense of him from the new Modest Mouse record? No! I get a Mousey feeling, but that fucker's not Modest. Why should he be? Didn't he write the music for "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out"? Yes, he did. So he can call me all the names he wants. He can shit on my head when I am lying bleeding on the pavement because Morrissey kicked me in the teeth again, I DON'T CARE. He's allowed. But I still don't know him.

I used to know Morrissey, too. In his lean mean period, after he released one crappy record too many in the late 90's & was forced to turn to Bingo to make ends meet. You'll remember those days - I was afraid I had scarlet rubella, & you were daydreaming of making a reality television show where you'd be trapped on a desert island with only fifteen fifteen-year-old boys & girls & the soundtrack to "Hackers." Morrissey existed almost entirely in our heads, saved from ten years before when we were lonesome & we didn't want to believe people could take anything more seriously than we did. Morrissey disappeared, though - up the ass of the universe, I once heard you say - & you disappeared, too. You became part of Kenneth Lay's Ethics Squad & you were the number one Blowjob Researcher in Washington, DC.

Neither one of you did badly, though - Morrissey made a comeback & he's coming to town this week, & you went to the private sector & now study blowjobs for GE. I am estranged from you both. I guess, like the characters in the songs that Morrissey sings that I listen to & which I'll play on my show Friday, I got left behind.

No tears! I am not the saddest clown! Worry me not, endless past! I shall be free of you one day, if only because I plan to remove pieces of my brain one by one until I no longer remember grunge! I am prepared for collateral damage!

Tomorrow: a very long poem to Morrissey written when I was 17 & had never been kissed. Not even by Morrissey.

The Campaign To Make Memorial Day A National Holiday

I was a little sleepy when I wrote this so I was doe-eyed & cute. There was gunk in my eyes. I kept yawning over words & stretching out while we were talking & making it hard for you to understand. I was thinking that, you know, being suffocated by a pillow sounds marvellous.

Because existence is a fruit cup, I am slapping some water on the face of the present time & managing to spend a little & save a lot. You may have an inky inkling where this dialogue is going: yes, we need more days off. The Europeans have it right: don't ever require anyone to work ever. 30 hour week? 30 hour fuck you! Now, where's my health insurance? I need to go to a clinic in Brussels & have my ass removed.

Aside to Scott McLellan: you have been utterly & completely forgotten by everyone but me.

I was at the lake house this weekend - I mean, the lake of fire house - I mean, the firehouse by the lake - I mean, the firehouse once visited by Veronica Lake - & I noticed that the bags under my eyes are getting a little frayed from overuse. This is why I am a champion of allowing everyone unlimited carry-on bags on flights. Or on busses. I haven't been on a bus in years. I mean one of those busses that goes from town-to-town. But just this year, I've been on a place, a city bus, a trolly, an airplane, a magic carpet, a ten-speed bicycle, a hunchback's back, a space shuttle (but I didn't fly in it or anything, duh), a convenience store conveyor belt, & a helicopter. But no bus that goes from town-to-town. Mainly because I haven't wanted to go from town-to-town.

Someone is telling me that I need to enjoy the finer things in life. What does that say about me? What does that say about what that person sees me surrounding myself with at the moment? The only sort of nice things in life? What happens if it turns out my life is nearly exactly like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, when really it's supposed to be like Law & Order: Criminal Intent?

I'm stuck in an elevator now, & there's a woman laughing at an adverisement next to me, so I'd best do what I do best: scream out the lyrics of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" in Esperanto. That makes the journey more exciting for all of us.

Tips For Wasting A Lazy Sunday

1) Add gin to your lemonade.
2) Mow, mow, mow.
3) Look for redundant videos of Zach Galifianakis on Youtube. Decide - beard or no beard?
4) Divide your Elvis Costello records between when he was good & when he started sucking. Yell at his sucky records. Yes, even if you feel bad about New Orleans.
5) Call your mother. Doze while she talks.
6) Piss your cats off by following them around & doing everything they're doing.
7) Make up a rain dance. Do a rain dance. If it rains, jump in the air, pump your fists & say, "You are my bitch you sky god motherfucker!"
8) Sundays are clothing-optional all over the world.
9) Think about shopping, think better of it.
10) Go to the Self Help Radio website & catch up on the episodes you've been missing. Last Friday's train wreck of a show - about parades - is there for the eating. Yum yum!

Like Living In A Basket Of Henna

I think I'm the only other person besides John Phillip Sousa who has written songs specifically for old people renewing their vows or otherwise getting remarried. I hesitate to mention this because I am a modest man with an Amber Alert, but I am also an accomplished singer slash songwriter (I sing, & I slash songwriters) who is suffering now, not for my art, but against my better judgement. I want to be able to promote my business on my radio show, but I cannot. The FCC doesn't allow it. My mother frowns on it. My cult leader Wiggles 1 says it's bad for my Hobbit Karma, & the woman I love won't let me buy spots on late night television. She's afraid they'll compete with her "hot sex line!" spots.

They used to say, "In for a cuddle, in for a snog," but that didn't play well after reruns of "Gilligan's Island." So we sewed a hole in the cave & made out for the Big City with sneezes ablaze. Our GPS powered by a drunken attempt to find the fastest way via Yahoo Maps in the dark led us straight to the obligatory horror film casting call. I couldn't shriek with so many corn nuts in me, so I got to play the gay ranger. You got to skinny dip in a South Dakota prison while humming an MC Hammer tune (which, technically, means you were humming a Rick James tune) & the killer (played by James Spader) caught you, tied you up, & removed your bridgework. We made fifty dollars that day & fed it to the local rabbits.

An Appalachian firehose told us stories of riches & treasures downstream in the Pisgahs, so we rented a jalopy from Archie Andrews & made quick time (our musical interlude was only two minutes). Alas, though we were armed with a Richard Gere quarterstick & a half-drunk bottle of Martini & Rossi, we were still bested by the clans of roving Elf-Fuckers who patrol the other side of those old hills. They only let us leave when I kept kicking their ass at Trivial Pursuit. & you didn't want to bring it!

What I am meaning to ask is, can we forfeit time? What happens to a dream demured? As I remember the delicious way they killed realtors - slowly, with great care, in empty houses with great resale possibility - I try not to reflect on future failures. Instead, I wil file a lawsuit. If you'd like to be a co-plaintiff, or if you'd like to be sued, I know a guy who knows a girl who knows this family in Washington DC who knows this bathhouse which is run by this dude he knows who keeps videos of all the patrons & the number-one biggest "rubber ducky in the bath" client is none other than former head of the Soviet Union Raymond Burr!

If you don't believe me, at least listen to my radio show. It's like a ninety-minute long song, broken into ear-sized chunks.

The Critics Are Quick To The Draw

My post yesterday was a widely anticipated attempt to mix internal rhyme ("doggerel") with external rhyme ("Dylanerrel") to capture the fresh new sound of our post-Global-Warming culture. But reactions were decidedly icky:

Paul Walker Poot in the Stalon Onlin (yeah, they spell it without an e - whaddaya gonna do?) - said, "Once again, a radio personality (if you can call him that, which I can't, although I just did) attempts to meld their mundance audio experience with the flights of poetic fancy. The results literally made me weep tears of blood."

The usually supportive Maryann Serialkiller over in Spate said, "Though I am usually supportive, I feel as though the liberties this deejay takes are embarrassing & overindulgent. More music, sir, less poesy."

My old middle school Texas History teacher, the late Papa Jim Burns, when I read the piece to him, told me via the Ouija Board: "Your feet are flat. Stop making cheese with your mind. Knit socks stopped the last ice age. Give me two pennies with a kiss."

The film critic known only as 1975 said on his blog, "I was going to start reviewing more than films, but the first blog I found was an obviously self-hating homsexual attempt to rebuild his closet from the moans & groans of his 'listeners.'"

On a more cheery note, on the blog called "Living With Advanced Phlegm Deficiency," the brave soldier named DryMouth763 said, "If I never had to read shit like this again, I could die happy." It's so wonderful to see someone come to grips with what is obviously a very disgusting disease. I'm pleased I could play a part.

However, this bodes ill for advanced reviews of tomorrow's show, & I would like to point out that the staff of writers I employ for Self Help Radio - the Blog - are not the staff of writers I employ for Self Help Radio - the Radio Show - but only because I don't have a staff of writers. Instead, I have some magic Darren Aronofsky tree bark which I eat a little bit of, dream I am a bald Hugh Jackman, then I settle down & do a radio show. The tree bark is what makes all the difference.

The only drug I take before I write these blog entries is fear. Fear, & a little oxygen. I'm sorry I have failed you so.

Whither Parades?

This is the fourth iteration of my explanation why there's such consternation about the association of my radio station & the word "parade." Once again, I must explain, though I admit it cause me pain, I would fain let you sustain one more drop of rain of the confusion which has lain about the wreck of train that is my disdain (what a sorry refrain!) I have for those who, in the main, cannot but crane their necks to obtain reasons why I am doing a show about "parades."

Why do you need to know? Is it because I tell you so? You wouldn't search high or low, no, you are lazy & you are slow, but to a computer you will go & with some "browser bookmark" in tow, you find the link to my show, & then to the blog to feast on my woe, though never must you look too long to find out why my theme is what my theme is that week.

But I don't think you really care. Oh yes I dare to say so, where you once thought I was timid, now I rise from my chair, making the hair on your neck bristle back there - it's not fair that I, fully aware, spend all this time to bare my soul to apathetic you, in your lair, as you stare or blink or say, "Gare, that's not true," then drift off, it's not rare, it's the disinterst you wear when you lazily glare at my blog as I write something else about my show.

I love my radio show & I want you to like it so I continue to write these things even when I lose my "rhyme time." "Rhyme Time" is a factory-authorized time of day when you are allowed to rhyme to your heart's content. People who sign up for "rhyme time" are not allowed to rhyme continuously for any time other than rhyme time. Otherwise, they may destroy the space-rhyme continuum. I would have loved to continue the poem. But my time is up.

Parades this week. Parades are fun. Parades might get you laid. Ooops. Forget I rhymed that.

Preface To Parades: Whatever Float Floats Your Boat

Madchester Martin, in his impotent history Parades & The Fancy Men Who Love Them, forwarded the astonishing thesis that parades were a metaphor for parades themselves, making the idea of parades a simile, & the sound that parades made a self-fulfilling onomatopoeia. This is why he was later voted king of France, but in his early years, supervising the clean-up crew at the Pigeon Towers, he often wondered why parades were the way parades were though parade uniforms looked silly at any time of year besides Halloween. He also dreamed of a never-ending parade that only stopped when he woke up.

The last time I went to a parade, it was kinda gay. Actually, it was very gay. It was a Gay Pride Parade. I was not the only straight person there, nor was I the only straight person there getting some hot gay sex. But being at a Gay Pride Parade doesn't make you gay. It doesn't even make you a paradophile. It just means you're prideful. Chew on that, Voltaire!

Voltaire, by the way, did not invent parades. If it's just one crazy French guy marching down the street making bugle noises with his mouth, that's not a parade. That's just goofy. So too the saying, "Be my parade!" is incorrect. You need at least ten people & two floats to have an official parade (this is in the Oxford University Parade Rules Handbook, New Millenium Edition). People who tell you you must have animals are liars. Probably they work for the Parade Animal industry. Those bastards will say & do anything to get work.

I know many of you are afraid that I am just a shill for the Parade World myself. This is not so. For example, when I did my show last week about addresses, I made it perfectly clear that I myself had an address. During the show I did about owls earlier this year, I made it clear that I owned four owls & was an owl-breeder who sold owls on OwlBay. I have always been upfront about my financial, social, or sexual relations with the topics I explore on my show. So even though the International Big Parade Conglomerate (funded by UNESCO & the World Bank, at least until Wolfowitz is fired) has bought me new clown shoes & an official baton from Boca Raton, I don't feel I am doing them much of a favor by having an entire show about parades. Indeed, they'd prefer I leave the topic alone. Every year I do a Christmas show, fewer people celebrate the holiday. That's known as the "Self Help Radio Curse."

Tomorrow: President Truman on parades: "We must have them here so we don't have to have them there."

Cemetaries are for LOSERS

I was talking to this dead dude the other night - yes, it was a dream - & he was telling me that, even though his soul is able to soar free & do what it wants - & believe it or not, he tells me that looking at nekkid girls all the time gets boring because they hardly ever do things like in pornographic movies when they're alone - a lot of them fart most of the time, he says, & he's one of those shades who can also smell stuff which just sucked on a level that seemed impossible past death - he said that he couldn't be truly free until his body rotted away. That's the sadness about our burial system, he said. It traps spirits on Earth. Which meant that dead folks like him, who died young, had to hang out with dead racists & Nazis & other ignorant folk whose bones were still around. He also said it was very uncomfortable because there were a lot of "pre-humans" like Lucy around & they were dull, dull, dull. "Evolve!" he used to scream at them.

Anyway, I woke up realizing that that dream was completely unhelpful. I know, I should be one of those exciting pseudoscientists who buy into dream interpretation & who sleeps with crystals shoved up my nose & who changes the aroma of my bedsheets to match my next day's needs (does anyone really do that - hot dog! I invented a pseudoscience!), but I'd prefer that, if my dreams wanted to help me, they be direct. Don't have some dumbass corpse making shit up to amuse me - & I dreamed I was laughing my head off - but instead, have the corpse come to me - it could be anything, it's a dream, so let's say, a rabbit - the rabbit come to me & say, "Hello buddy. Here are the reasons your radio show sucks. Here's how to fix it."

I learned this phrase from Sam Harris: "too cute by half." He said, "that zen koan was too cute by half." But I am saying now that my dreams are too cute by half. By three quarters, even. My dreams are too cute by six bits. & that's got to stop. Or I'll be forced to huff paint until I pass out.

I am publicly telling my mind: shape the fuck up. You totally blew it when we tried lucid dreaming. You still let me obsess about dumb stuff way too much. Let's start with settling down the flights of fancy in my dreams & being more constructive. & I promise, in return, to put more drugs into you than I have been recently. I know you love that.

Speaking of love, you might love listening to last Friday's episode of Self Help Radio. It exists in sexually provocative mp3 podcast form for all your digital music needs. Get it now! Before you die! Because all music when you're dead sounds like the Doobie Brothers!

Home Invasion (Version)

No one wakes up this early on a Sunday morning unless there's a church that needs forgiving. I am into my second week of Having To Walk The Dogs. The dogs are in their second week of Making That Human Walk Us Early In The Morning. I also have to confess I dream about When It's Time To Mow The Lawn. Also, I think it's just sinking in that the Arm broke up. Did I get a fucking phone call? What happens when phone calls fuck? Are their children disposable cell phones?

It's Mother's Day so naturally thoughts turn to matricide. I think Freud said it best when he wasn't talking. To get back to me, I am not entirely sure why I never made a living as a torch singer, but I do know I got in a lot of trouble when I brought the torch into banks, restaurants, & the occasional bus. "Why not a candle?" a kindly maitre'd might say. "Or one of those nice little lights that children & thieves put next to their beds at night to scare away monsters & the East German secret police?" "Would you like to hear our specials?" he would add.

The difference between you & me, I believe, is continuity. I spent so long - I still spend so long - I may continue spending so long - cramming my head full of stuff that I naturally forget about things from time to time. (Sorry, Fiji!) I remember one time when I was talking about the first girl to kiss me - someone who's name one shouldn't forget - & I couldn't recall it. (Sorry again, Fiji!) I remember it now, of course. I also vaguely remember what she kissed like. It's not the first time you've heard this, but: she kissed like a polka.

Here's an unfair thing about googling for men. If you're googling, say, the first girl you ever kissed, just, you know, to find out what the hell happened & how many children she's stuck with for the rest of her lousy life, you might not be able to find her because she'll more than likely have changed her name. Maybe more than once! How unfair is that? Any girl who cared can always find me on the critical list of people who need new livers, but I can't find out how many times they've had to go to court to bail their sprog out of juvie.

Speaking of my mother, I do owe her a debt of gratitude (& about nine hundred dollars) for always being there when I arrested for screaming at cheese with a household pet. (That's on the books in Garland, Texas - look it THE FUCK up, skeptic.) Some might say it's flattering to share a felonious condition like that with such notables as Thomas Jefferson (arrested in Paris in 1778 for hollering at a brie with a twelve-year-old poodle) & Emile Zola (arrested in Virginia in 1899 for "arguing with a wheel of cheddar" while two golden retrievers looked on), but years of therapy & the humiliation my friends so gladly put me through (a featurette on ESPN-6 was grueling & only looks good on my resume) makes all that an ambivalent experience at best.

I raise a toast of actual toast (it is morning) to my mother & my mother everywhere. I wish I had some jelly to wash it down with. The things one does for love of king & mother!

Finding New Bob Dylan Quotes (In Your Grandma's Old Bible)

Lookit! It's a Friday & a Friday is & has been for the past year a Self Help Radio day! If you're happy & you know it, clap your blog!

I remember being a Tuscan wench at the age of nine who was amused by the phrase "boxing of the ears" whilst reading nor rereading Botticelli & his children's literature ho ho. For indeed, what is most punishful about that, putting a box on the ears? Ah ha, the children cannot hear. But no! I asked my pal Romeo McGreavy (who was also a Tuscan wench but two years older) & he didn't TELL, he SHOWED me. Boxing ears is bad like shaking baby is bad. Perhaps we shouldn't even WRITE about it. Ouchy.

I must confess, even though I flinch now, I do miss the random, amusing violence of childhood. Looking back, I am now aware that most of my insecurities, my sexual hang-ups, my inability to cope with darkness & small places that smell like cafeterias, my pronounced stutter when I am amorous, my lack of feeling in three of the fingers on my left hand, my fear of trough toilets, my sense of nausea when someone scratches on a big chief tablet, my mind's weird habit of repeating the calvary charge bugle in my head every time I walk through the door of an institutional-looking building, my need to be handcuffed to a chalkboard at least once a year, my habit of calling any woman with big hair "mom," my emptiness at not getting recess twice a day, my anxiety about jello in beige plastic cups, & even my dangerous joy in letting Elmer's glue harden over my eyes, nostrils & mouth, I know these were probably caused by the random, amusing violence of childhood. But so what? I can still miss it. I can miss it like an abusive spouse.

WHY DO YOU TRY TO TELL ME WHAT I CAN & CAN'T THINK? You're worse than the CIA. At least they have prescribe governmental parameters about what you can think. But they also spring for little radios to implant in your ears. I know, I used to have one. Until Romeo McGreavy boxed my ears & disconnected it forever. I have been alone since.

Here's a list of dos & don'ts for today's Self Help Radio:

1) DO listen.
2) DO keep listening even if I make you sick to your stomach.
3) DON'T vomit in your car. Pull over & lean your head out.
4) DON'T drive for a while if you're still sick.
5) DO keep listening, though. Some people eventually develop a tolerance for Self Help Radio.
6) DO call me if you think you'd like to talk. I am not allowed to convince you either way, but I have had training at an Energy Crisis Hotline.
7) DO make your friends listen by calling them & holding your cellphone up to the speakers.
8) DON'T be friends with them if they don't like the show.
9) DO ignore rule 8 if you want to have sex with the friend.
10) DON'T tell me if you have sex, though. My girlfriend's in DC for two more weeks.

I hope you'll listen!

You Shouldn't Judge A Blog By Its Blogger

Two random thoughts: 1) "myspace" is kinda cynical. I understand the desire to promote yourself until your balls are a bright blue, but still, I find it weird that people who have to know I don't play them on my show want to be my "friend." Is it too much to ask why you want to be my friend? Because I am on the KOOP myspace page? You make me sad. 2) Who do I have to blow to get on the blogger "notable updated blogs" blurb that's always there when I log on. Do they tell you when you're notable? Is there a cash prize? I make myself sad.

No one has noticed (apparently) that my radio show is sporting a whole new set of teeth. That cost a pretty penny, but I will point out, when one's radio show can convincingly sound like a character in an Erskine Caldwell novel, it's time to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. Unless, of course, you're supposed to be an old fart country music show. Teeth get in the way of yer chaw! Spit out the bicuspid, grammy! We're having biscuits made mushy in hot white gravy!

Speaking of local bands, I can't sleep at night because I am afraid of local bands of ruffians that wander my neighborhood & break into my house & steal my stuff. I worry more because I don't own my own gun. I own a timeshare for an AK-47 that a friend in New York is using to renegotiate a contract. It just so happens I am disarmingly disarmed while my girlie, who has all the mad Lemur Fu skills in the family, is away in the nation's capitol walking slowly behind FBI agents to see if they care. I hope my poor sleeping skills do not affect my poor radio skills. But something always suffers, whether it's people who remember Roger Staubach or people who cut their teeth with a sieve.

I will be spending tonight rehearsing my line for my radio show (the line is this: Gary! Don't fuck up your radio show!) (I don't read that line on air) (the FCC doesn't like that kind of language, especially coming from me), so I'm sorry I can't return all your call. Maybe we can simply pretend our outgoing answering machine messages have coded replies to our queries? Or do you not like the word "query"? Do you think it's kinda gay?

I was going to offer you a present, but I am going to pay for reminding everyone of Roger Staubach. Since he doesn't give me any money, I can only hope he's not up tonight, googling his own name while smoking fine Moroccan hash & daydreaming about the time we held hands at a Dallas nightclub. He didn't tell me he was married. Nor a quarterback!

I must go now. I want to be a loner.

Whither Addresses?

I have forgotten where you live. Also, I have lost that little book I use to remind me where you live. As well, I don't appear to understand the general abbreviations for byways & other paths which are generally part of descriptions of place where people like you live. Dr. Ave. Blvd. Rd. Cir. Ln. Str. They confuse me. I don't apparently know where the hell I am.

Do I really think a radio show about addresses will help me? I once did a show about kissing, & no one kissed me for a month. Not even my cat. & she's a kissing slut. I believe that science has shown that religion will tell you that logic fails when reason is ignored by spiritually-motivated myths & fables. It takes a grain of salt to power the quantum mechanism that proves beyond a shadow of a fact that my show is the radio equivalent of "opposite day."

Also, people say I am nothing at all like William Shakespeare.

I was trying to misspell "contraindicated" one day many years ago (or last year) when someone asked me what my address was. I wanted to be funny, you know, like Bugs Bunny dressed up as Lincoln talking to Yosemite Sam & saying, "Look me up at my Gettysburg Address," but I apparently said something like, "I can't believe you're such a fucking freak," & now that person is suing me for defamation of a cartoon character. Nevertheless, it hit me: if people knew where I lived, they could write me letters, or come visit me. Pizza delivery folks would be able to bring food to me. People who walk around neighborhoods selling stuff could come to my door. I would have a presence in a telephone book. I would be able to say, as I haven't much of my life, "I have a place where I sleep." It seemed so magical that I cried, I broke down & cried, right then & there, in the dentist's chair. I know that James Joyce & Meryl Streep would call that an "epiphany," but I don't know anything about prostitution in the Bible, so I'll just say it was a life-changing moment & leave it at that.

Now I think I'll ruin it by doing a radio show about it.

That's this Friday. You might want to iron your shirt & stock up on spices. Just sayin'.

Preface To Addresses: How To Use Online Maps To Find Treasure!

From this point on, please, stop talking to me about pirates. Not only does it not make any sense (the only pirates you should be afraid of are love pirates), but you're just trying to cash in on Pirates Of The Caribbean Part 90: Keith Richards Is A Vampire Pirate! I liked you better when you were interested in hobbits.

I take as my text this week The United States Book Of The Phone, written in 1884 by Old Mother Bell. With an afterword & an afterthought by a fellow called Zip, whose code you might be familiar with. It's easy to crack. Let us take an example. Give me a series of five digits. What? 23432? Dude, you're in Suffolk, Virginia!

Those codebreakers from World War Doo have nothing on me.

This week's show will feature such feats of fancy. It's sponsored in part by imaginary parts of the United States Postal Pistol Service & of course Mapscomp, the famous map makers that got me out of many a tight jam with their 1000 page map booklet I always keep in the glove compartment of my wallet. Ha ha, the sheriff in Algodones, New Mexico, didn't know who the FUCK he was dealing with when he tussled with me & my boyz. Bam! Mapscorp says Los Colonias runs parallel to Los Romeros & it was a brief ride through someone's yard to BYE BYE overweight lawmarm.

We lost Toby that night, though. He was a good man. He was shot in the ass mooning a deputy. The medical examiner said the bullet travelled up the colon into the skull. It made us all feel bad for the all the times we called him "shit for brains."

Nowadays I've retired from my life of fun to enjoy a weekly radio show & my postpunk postcard collection. For those who are curious about my little patch of wheat: I lost it to the chaff parasite. But I managed to get inoculated, so we'll try it next year. Thanks for all the cards & letters. I burned them with my tears.

Do you remember where you live? I plan to find out tomorrow.

A Brief History Of My Great Love For England Dan & John Ford Coley

I'd really love to see them tonight.

But what really burns my butthole is that "Dan Seals," once the swingin' seventies were over & no one wanted to listen to his grooves, decided to go over to the dark side of music, "contemporary country" & fucking totally discarded the name "England Dan" because I guess he thought country fans would dismiss him as royalty or something. Selling out motherfucker.

That doesn't make me hate the good stuff, though. I mean, let's put it this way: twelve hundred Americans die every year choking on grapes (a fact I just made up, but it sounds good) & yet I don't hate listening to jelly. Especially when it's settling. They say Debussy conceived his most beautiful pop records while listening to jelly settle. & he didn't just settle for jelly either: he listened to whatever was in a jar. He even listened to jarred things as they agitated. Agitate is what my brain just told me is opposite of settle.

I like to do stuff regularly, but I also like to mix it up. That may explain some things, but it doesn't excuse others. An example: the Hotel Vietnam, located in Parsley, Kentucky. What were the Joneses thinking? They weren't. They weren't thinking. & now Jeffrey is going to need even more crack to treat his PSTD. It was like picking a baby's name from a random page in the phone book. With explosions.

I'm tickled pink to announce that, despite the evil mechinations of the Adversary, last Friday's show makes its podcast-sized debut on selfhelpradio.net. Just click here to get to the page that has the show on it. I can't remember doing it, but the recording seems to have me on it, so I guess I was there. It reminds me of the four times I might have lost my anal cherry before I actually did. The good news is, my dentist at the time will be in jail until 2009. The bad new is, I THINK I HAVE A CAVITY!

Changing Your Life, One Comb At A Time

The text messaging revolution has found its way to our iron-clad shores. Alas, I am without a legend. Can someone tell me what IWIWAUNL means?

In a few short hours (two, actually) or in a lot of long minutes (120?), there'll be another Self Help Radio & won't you be sad you made fun of my dad. I'll be making noises into a radio-quality microphone that will resemble the same sort of English that Will Rogers once spoke, only with a little less stammering & a mouth not full of tabacky. If you can understand what I am saying, I will have achieved one of my goals for today. The others include:

12) Find a lot of money in a dead man's pockets.
15) Write a great poem in my head while driving & forget it forever.
21) Learn to drink in my sleep.
23) Make out with dog(s).
27) Boogie until head wet with sweat.

The full list, which is modified daily, is available for downloading online through RSS feed once I figure out how to do it. A popular drinking game in Singapore nightclubs involves reading my "daily goals," then drinking a lot until they're translated into Singaporese, then drinking some more as drinkers realize I have boring goals. Caning is not the only way to end such a night, but how bad can it get?

Meanwhile, as the waves of time beat against the chest of existence, you've been distracted enough for me to put last week's show for your downloading pleasure over at selfhelpradio.net. Warning: do NOT listen to this mp3 podcast recording while listening to Self Help Radio live. It will bend space & time & you'll have to live through middle school all over again.

See you when you hear me, pilgrim.

Whither "Keep On"?

As I write this, much later than I normally write this nonsense, there's a magnificent storm happening in Austin. I had to drive through about two feet of water tonight, past cars who were in deeper than I was - & where *I* could have been, if they hadn't blundered there first. I love these kinds of storms, especially when I am more or less safe & dry, but I also think the power could be shut off at any moment, so I should type fast.

By the way, there were people there helping the stuck-in-the-water cars. I'm not that self-absorbed that I wouldn't have stopped. I don't live in the middle of nowhere.

Also, I am the only person in Austin who doesn't have a cell phone. My pets have cell phones, I don't. Someone had called a tow truck.

Which reminds me, I saw a tow truck today with a Jesus fishie on it. I know that businesses put those Jesus fishies on their logos, etc., to let Christians know they're a Christian business (whatever that means), but I wonder, do they know that it makes some people go, "Eew!" Isn't that the opposite of what being a business is all about? Also, what makes a Christian tow truck different than, say, a Muslim tow truck? More forgiving of debts? Would someone like to try that one out?

So the show in barely two days has the theme "keep on." Once again, I noticed that phrase almost peripherally & wondered how many songs repeat the phrase. There were a lot. I said, "I'll form a show around it." I took my medication. I had a nice sleepie. The days came & went. Soon, my schedule told me that I had to do that show. Now I will do it. But first, I'll take my medication. Then I'll have a nice sleepie.

Or maybe I'll go play in the rain.

Preface To "Keep On": I Want To Be In An Urban 1970s Sitcom Please

This week on Self Help Radio, a team of stinky linguists will decontruct the phrase "keep on." Then, the rest of the time (89 minutes) will be devoted to a long exposition of my painful childhood. & why not? Everyone thinks this "theme" is filler. I hear your sneers. I feel your squeals. I taste your haste. I see your inability.

Here are things I'll be discussing when I am not cussing:

1) How one learns that the pretty girls say very bad words & also fart when they think one is a deaf-mute.
2) How the same action that gets you cred in the second grade - say, bringing your favorite comic books to school - can have the opposite effect in the eighth grade.
3) How cruel youth can be when they're beating the living shit out of you.
4) How trying to be as inconspicuous as possible during twelve long years of schooling can make it impossible to reconnect with your old friends thirty years later on "classmates.com."
5) How easily one can be convinced that being locked in a closet on weekends can be a good thing for a child with an active imagination, especially when one's mother has a silver tongue.
6) How sex can't be explained through pornography or the colorful expressions your friend Kirk uses, even if they seem descriptive enough.
7) How falling off a motorbike can make you bleed a lot, & how the laughter of your fellows compares with a calm, drug-heavy ride in the back of an ambulance.
8) How much one can add to one's sleep requirement by sitting in the back of the room.

Oh, I can keep on doing this for a long time. I may keep on doing it all day Friday. Will you keep on listening? I will keep on hoping that you do.

When Pirates Dance!

As April ends, I want to remember the fourth month I experienced in 2007. It seemed gloomy, rainy & sad, but also weirdly sunny, bright & warm. I may have lost fourteen dollars this month. But I also may have gained a new tooth. As April ends, I am forced to wonder: was I involved with April at all? Or did I simply just mow the lawn a couple of times & then sleep fitfully?

In April, I found out the bees are dying. My own experience with bees has been that, while they appear to be listening, they really retain nothing. After I patiently explained the difference between sugar, high fructose corn syrup & aspertame to a very sweet worker one afternoon, she still wanted to make out with my diet soda. Then she stung me & died, which I found a little too much. My mother used to guilt me like that.

If there's one lesson we should take from April, it's that daylight savings time is taxing. Oh shit, that's like a pun. Ha ha! Or, we can say that tax day saves you everything but daylight. No, that's not true. I know. That the only thing safe from tax day is sunlight. Unless you deal in solar futures. Then, never mind.

I promised last April that I would keep a running tally of the number of times I clipped my nails this April, because I had dreamt that Sid Caesar told me that your fingernails grow twice as long but your toenails twice as slow in April. Or maybe I had dreamt that April Stevens had warned me about the Ides Of March last month, because that's when Caesar died. Or maybe I was just daydreaming while watching HBO's Rome. Did that end this April?

April's not over yet! There's still time to win the lottery, grow a goatee, nail 95 theses to your church's wall, become a vegetarian, design a series of stamps that commemorate McLain Stevenson, bag a thrush, help a friend learn her vocal scales, care for a particularly sickly tree, crawl from the wreckage, reject a telemarketer's advances, get lost in someone's eyes, hit it but don't quit it, & possibly squeeze in a good cry with a friend.

But hurry!

Oh, & if you're interested in what was happening in the middle of April with Self Help Radio, my Black Cassette show is available for your listening pleasure.

What To Expect & When To Expect It

Because I am on the radio, people expect me to know virtually everything about everything. I surprise them because I do. Ta-da! I know virtually everything about everything. It's just how you define "virtually." & "about." & "everything."

Much buzz has been generated in my own head this past week about my triumphant return to the airwaves to do Self Help Radio once again. Sure, many lives were lost in the crazy coup d'etat my foes from NPR & the "Everything 99¢" chain stores waged to get me off the air. They're still cleaning all the blood & raisins out of the carpet at KOOP. But though I was forced to retreat for a week, I am returning this Friday, like MacArthur to the Phillipines. & everyone agreed that the radio show MacArthur did the night of his return was the best radio show of his long career.

Not many people have written me to ask, "Gary, do you forgive your enemies for their ridiculous attempt at depriving the world of your genius?" Of course not. They are my enemies & we have an agreement. Besides, it's come to my attention that many religious figures urged forgiveness, & none of them ever had a radio show. There's a correllation there if you squint hard enough & have someone tap you incessantly on the forehead at the same time. I won't be drowned in the mistakes of the past, any more than I'll be clotheslined by the errors of the present. Right now, my concern is for the catastrophic boo-boos of the future.

Tomorrow is the new tomorrow; yesterday is yesterday's yesterday. The days of the week shall be renamed with the names of species of bees that are dying off. Please let me know when they announce the end of the world - I will therefore be able to start smoking again with impunity.

Ah, Self Help Radio. You are again safe, protected & loved. Let us converge in twenty-four hours, at the four-thirty time slot, & see what we can see. Embrace me! Embrace us all!

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 8

Why make lists at all? Why best ofs and worst ofs & top tens? Could there be something wrong with it all?

The first "best of" list was not, as many have supposed, the Top Ten Best Laws Of The Land by Hammurabi, who, & many people don't know this, was also a disc jockey on the weekends. No, the oldest & among the best "best of" lists was a series of rocks, flower parts, animal guts & strangely-shaped twigs, made by none other than Lucy - the fossil of her "best of" list was found with her fossil, meaning she was probably obsessing over something when she died. Who's to say?

But is the Indiepop A To Z a list or merely an attempt to make some kind of "encyclopedia"? The folks over at twee.net probably didn't think their list of indiepop bands was definitive. They just wanted people to see what an example of indiepop was. Leave it to a freak like me...

Someone has probably guessed right now what the whole point is: it's a chance for a lazy deejay (me) to show off what a large record collection he has (duh) by following some dumb list. I'm sure someone's done it for all kinds of genres. I just happen to be doing it now. & even though it's a sign of laziness, BOY is it exhausting.

I thought of something funny just now. If you collapse "record collection," you get "recollection." Isn't recollection just a collection of records? I so want to become Andy Rooney right now.

Where was I? Oh yeah. I continue a hopeless task on Friday. Tune in. We won't finish the Bs, but we'll get mighty close.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 8: Eight Times The Charmer!

Hello. Self Help Radio returns this week with the eighth installment of our popular "Indiepop A To Z" series. We last left off with a band called Brincando De Deus, so, as you can imagine, we're going to start - if not finish entirely, although I truly doubt that - the Bs.

This will be a return to Self Help Radio after a week off. If you must know, I was forced off the air by a brief but bloody military coup in my own home. If you heard Self Help Radio last week, you might have noticed the show was programmed by what sounded like very fat & lazy beagles. That's because our dogs found a way to lock me in the bathroom, eat everything in the house & then rush to do my show. I spent the weekend cleaning up after them. But I was able to reassert control when they realized they couldn't use my credit card. They're my dogs, so there's obviously a family resemblance, but in the photo on my credit card, I am clean-shaven. Foiled!

By the way, it's very obvious to me the dogs didn't think of this themselves. But the cats kept their paws clean. Or, if their paws were dirty, they cleaned them carefully before I noticed.

Anyway, I am committed to continuing the Indiepop A To Z for the time being, so let's put all the unpleasantness of the past week behind us & forge ahead. Eventually there'll be a gigantic audio documentation of indiepop from a to z which will be like a giant Ken Burns documentary - saved in someone's collection but never listened to.

Viva!

Whither A Self Help Radio Without Gary?

I should title this "Whither Death & Taxes," as that is the theme this week, but since I won't be doing it, I am concentrating on my absence. As you should. For what is my absence but the lack of my presence? Surely I woke up this morning expecting to be there, & you should be expecting me to wake up next to you every morning. Wait. What? I mean, you should expect that I am on the radio when I am supposed to be on the radio (you know, like we're supposed to be happy), & when I am not there, you should be thinking, "But where is Gary? Could he be (as we might assume he be) in a mess o'trouble? For he ain't got a lick o'sense! But maybe he'll find a bit o'luck, & we'll see him when we see him." You should be thinking that, by the way, in a bad Southern accent. If you're thinking it in a good Southern accent, you're missing the point.

Instead of preparing for my show in (what is it now?) nine days - & this show will change everything you think about dope dealers & greeting cards, I promise you - I have been watching the Larry Sanders show. If only Self Help Radio could be the Larry Sanders Show. This is my fictional invitation to a fictional talk show host played a person who has the beautifulest of all names, Gary, but spells it with two rs as if to say he's better than those Garys who spell with only one r. & he is. But he's the only one. Take that Garry Fucking Marshall! I didn't need you to finance my movie anyway.

So the show won't have me this week, but you will have the show. Except the show won't be hosted by me, so, although I am certain Art Baker will do a fabulous job, it won't quite be the show that I do. You know, the show that I do to you. For you. Because it is just me & you, my love, & the problems of one very minor radio celebrity & one completely oversexed listener don't amount to a hill of beans in this laser-hair-removal world. What are those problems? Well, I'd suggest we start at the Potsdam Conference & work our way down.

I'm hungry. Want to grab a bite to eat? Cool.

Preface To A Self Help Radio Without Gary: What If It Becomes A Habit?

Dearest Friends,

I am sorry I cannot be with you this week. Self Help Radio has been, alas, the victim of a buyout. A hostile takeover. Evil corporate ethics at their worst.

So this week, Art Baker of Jamaican Gold has kindly decided to step in to be a place-holder (& to do a damn fine show, I suspect) while the dust settles. While the lawyers fuck. While the money is counted.

This probably means a great deal to you, the shareholders. After all, you urged me to go public in October. You were all like, "Gary, your show is a public treasure! Let's all own a piece of you!"

The blame is partially my own, of course. I have a gambling problem. My problem is, I don't know how to gamble. I am completely incapable of learning the rules to any particular game. The cards need to add up to 21? How can they do that without calculators? The little ball goes where? Okay, I've put my coin in, why doesn't the machine move? Tens are wild? Is that like saying "nines are frisky but ones are dull"?

In any event, I lost even my controlling share in Self Help Radio. Next week, I will be an employee of the show, not the owner & proprietor. Which reminds me, I need to get a new shingle to hang out front. Anyway.

I can't be at the show this week, but please tune in to hear Art Baker talk about "death & taxes" & play songs about it. I'll be back the next Friday with a continuation of the Indiepop A To Z series, but, alas, you'll hear these chilling words - the death rattle of a show killed by commerce:

"Self Help Radio, a fully owned subsidiary of Bloat Enterprises, Worldwide. All rights reserved."

Sigh.

A Friday Hoppity

So, although I'm not sure if this is the official word of the station, the KOOP Spring 2007 Membership Driveis ending today. We have probably met our goal ($35,000) by now, & just want to be grateful & end the day with smaller & smaller requests for your help. Of course no money will be rejected, & I'll have special copies of "The Black Cassette" to give away on my own show for your pledges. So please listen. If you've been kinda down this week, & it reminds you of being a depressed teenager, my show should be a kind of comfort.

I won't be doing my show next week - I have an important presentation at work - but Art Baker of Jamaican Gold will be sitting in to do a Self Help Radio show about "Death & Taxes." I can't wait.

I'll be writing all next week, though, because I can. & because I've got writer's block in regards to my giant history of the war on sailing.

Do tune in! & do help give monetary support to Self Help Radio!

No Letter Today

Kurt Vonnegut has died.

I am sad & have nothing to say.

Whither The Black Cassette?

If you haven't guessed - & assuming you care - I haven't been doing very well during the current KOOP Membership Drive. I get lots of calls during my show, & hardly any of them are people telling me to fuck off & die, so I can only guess why this radio show I work so hard for is incapable of raising any money for the radio station I love.

Maybe these are some reasons:

1) Everyone's just being nice. I suck.
2) People who might listen to my show like other KOOP shows better & give their money to that show.
3) My Membership Drive shows haven't been very good.

I am a sensitive soul & it has broken my already flimsy heart to not do very well, & I do expect there will come a time when there's no more Self Help Radio on KOOP. But while there is, I might as well continue to do this blog.

If it's any consolation - even if everyone who read this blog gave money to Self Help Radio, I'd still not be doing very well. I see the stats. Do you know how many people looked at this blog since last Wednesday? 28 hits. & some of you come more than once.

What's that? You didn't know you were invited to a Pity Party? Indeed! You are the Pity Party Pooper!

As I finish my fourth decade on this planet, I am strangely out of step - I find it hard to believe I was in college twenty years ago, & that there are some albums that I've known for longer than I've known most of the people I know. So - as a kind of therapy for me - for this last Membership Drive show, I thought I'd revisit that time period. I was a very depressed & lonely boy & the music I loved reflected that. The band My Favorite have a song called "The Black Cassette" (if you haven't heard it, the lyrics are here) which describes what could have been for me the summer of 1987. Or 1988. Or even 1998 if you want to make a big to-do of it, except I was on the road to figuring some shit out by then.

The show this week will be my reconstruction of what my black cassette might have been in those days. It may be a little too dark for an afternoon show - I'll be playing Joy Division, for fuck's sake! - but let's face it, I'm not going to make any more money for KOOP than I already have. So instead I'll just play music that's been in my head & heart for nearly twenty years now.

Afterwards, of course, we'll be jamming the Suicide Hotline. Call them early.

Preface to The Black Cassette: An Elegy For Dead Media

I missed a bus yesterday & had to take one of the University's evening "combo" busses (cheaper than their "super-size" busses - no one can finish those trips!) & it went through a neighborhood I lived in five or six years ago & am never really around anymore. It's also been a glorious spring in Austin, so everything is lime green & glowing, even though the degrees the past few days have been closer to January temperatures than April ones (it's fine, though - it's over 80 degree today). Anyway, I did that thing that everyone does, clucking to myself how much has changed, oh, I remember who used to live there, etc., etc. It made me a little melancholy & I thought to myself, "If only I had never moved from here, I wouldn't be surprised by how much has changed."

Isn't that a weird thought? I really wouldn't want to live over there anymore - I like my house, I like my neighborhood - so what was I thinking? I was just missing stuff. Scientists have proven that, the longer you live, the more time you have spent, the more stuff you'll miss. Even with heavy drinking & possible brain damage from a lifetime of stumbles & head injuries, you can still have a sense of a place which, when disturbed, causes the feeling called "missing." I miss a lot of stuff. I've forgotten most of what I miss, but I miss it the same.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the last of my poorly-received Membership Drive shows, which is based on a song by the now-defunct band called My Favorite called "The Black Cassette," but today I just want to remember how amazing cassettes were for what seemed like the longest time of my life.

Nowadays, of course, we know the CD is over & we wait for the computer chips they'll plant in our head into which we can download songs. But I remember stealing my mother's cassettes - cassettes on which her parents in Germany had recorded their lives for her, cassettes she might have wanted to listen to when they died years later - to record nonsense on because, being 8 years old, I couldn't afford the 99 cents that a bag of three cheap cassettes cost. (Here's a fun correlation: a bag of cheap cassettes then, a spindle of cheap blank CDs today.)

I remember learning about cassette snobbery: when I asked a friend of mine to record something for me, he refused the cheap three-for-99¢ cassette I gave him, & used something he called "high bias" or something. Maybe I even learned that Dolby was not the name of that "Blinded Me With Science" dude. Whatever. It played just fine for me.

When I was was at KVRX, in the dwindling days before CD burning became a reality, I taped stuff from CDs that I reviewed. Short of buying the CDs (or stealing them, which I didn't do) taping was the only way to have them. Then - I think it must've been ten or so years ago - suddenly my department at work got a CD burner. I burned a shitload of stuff from KVRX in my last months there - I wonder what might have happened if technology were just a little bit faster...

Do I miss cassettes? They hissed. They got chewed up. They came (like CDs!) in plastic containers that cracked when dropped. I know I do miss making mix cassettes for girls. I do miss the care required in filling up two sides of 45 minutes each. An 80 minute CD seems charmless by comparison.

I have a feeling we'll be saying the same thing about [insert current technology here] in a couple of years. & I'll miss it. & hey! I might even make a radio show about it. What fun!

A Thursday Letter Makes Everything Better

I got this from a friend of mine who thought she was writing me a personal email:

Gary,
I know you'd rather spend your time worry about the Membership Drive and how badly you'll do boo hoo hoo, but I was thinking you might be able to help me with this:
I was thinking about the idiom, "Smart as a box of rocks," and wondering if there are others out there that convey the same meaning/feeling. I found a page of idioms, and there are some good ones, but I thought you'd just be able to make some better ones off the top of your head. Or maybe you could put it on your web page and everybody could come up with one!

Good idea, "friend" who doesn't care if my show disappears when no one supports it. Do you know how many people actually read this blog? Counting my mom? Counting my brothers, two of whom don't know how to read? Not a lot, but if even they gave a little bit of money to KOOP during my show, I might not get demoted & be forced to do three minutes at the end of day Sundays. So laugh, laugh, laugh about my sensitivity. I stole money from your house the last time I was there. Ha!

Er. Well, it doesn't matter, she doesn't read this blog anyway.

"Smart as a box of rocks," eh? That's pretty dumb. Unless one considers that the consciousness of rocks may be on an epic time scale & they take eons to deliberate. That makes our smarts hasty & ill-thought-out. Ever thought of that?

I like the idea of making up idioms ourselves, but I won't be a party to your condescension. I'll rather share some completely new Idioms For All Occasions, & you yourself can decide what they mean. But I'll expect to hear people use them on a regular basis or I'll pout.

1) She's the cheese in her own soup.
2) As scary as the war on sailing.
3) If you've got a pocket full of nickels, it must be spring!
4) Between the devil & the wombat, opt for the devil.
5) Turn when the road turns; only follow the sidewalk so far.
6) Don't let green leaves or cold pipes slow you down.
7) Act as though each day could possibly be repossessed.
8) To the many, mugs; to the few, tumblers.
9) Don't brush your armhair gently over him.
10) The laughter of arhythmia.

Feel free to add your own! It's our language to change as we want.

& do think about becoming a member on my show tomorrow... Details linked above... Call from foreign lands or call from inside my house after you're broken in... Just please help my show before I run out of ellipses...

Whither The White Album Covered?

I can't remember which cool East Coast band of the Throwing Muses - Pixies - Breeders - Belly axis covered a Beatles song first - it might have been Throwing Muses covering "Cry Baby Cry" or it might have been the Pixies covering "Wild Honey Pie" for a Peel Session - but basically every one of those bands (except Belly, now that I think about it) (but including members of the bands solo) covered a Beatles song. & every one of those covers came from The White Album.

Why do people like hip post-punker Americans think the White Album is so cool? Why do I think it's so cool?

I've been listening - seriously listening, not just familiar with them because they never go away - to the Beatles since I was in sixth grade. I saw that so-awful-it's-brilliant movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as a very little kid, & I was enchanted. Dopey as I was, I knew the title song was a Beatles song, but I was certain the rest of the soundtrack was new. That must've irked one of my older brothers - or, more probably, I asked for it - because for Christmas that year, I got the Beatles album. I never looked back - I knew right away the movie was garbage & the candy-colored record was the real thing. I was probably ten or eleven at the time.

(My older brothers & sisters, alas, were never again able to advise me about music. They listened to the radio, &, when the radio made a right turn, they stayed with what was "classic." My brothers were never able to advise me which Elvis Costello album I should start with, & boy did I get a blank stare when I asked about the Velvet Underground. Probably still would!)

(Maybe that's not entirely fair - my sister Karin did let me borrow a Ramones greatest hits record when I was in high school. But that's probably it.)

Anyway, I devoured the red & blue greatest hits comps (the only Beatles stuff I had besides Sgt Pepper) & though I didn't have the money to buy the records (I was young & had no income, & the records never showed up in bargain bins, & when I saved up & bought "Meet The Beatles," I remember how ripped off I felt because it was barely thirty minutes long), I did tape a show called "Ringo's Yellow Submarine" which was on at the time (it was in fact hosted by Ringo & he played Beatles songs from all over) & one radio station in Dallas used to play entire records at 10pm every weeknight. One night, they were playing the White Album.

I had a crappy unit that wasn't quite a boombox, but it did have a cassette deck & a radio. The antenna had been destroyed long, long ago, so to get any reception at all, I had to put a finger on the little wedge of metal (which was kinda sharp - one false move & it meant a tetanus shot) where the antenna was bent off. The cassette of that broadcast had various moments (one in particular I always expect to hear at the end of "I'm So Tired" as it fades into "Blackbird") when I had to raise my hand for some reason, so the signal faded to static. That was my copy of The White Album for many years - until I bought a copy on white vinyl at a record store years later, when I was in high school.

The next day at school, & this was middle school, I talked to my few friends about it. In particular, I was blown away by "Revolution 9." I had listened to it three times that night. My friend Russell, who, unlike me, had an older brother with good taste in music, & who had listened to the record many more times than I had, dismissed that track as a waste of time, so we talked about the rest of the record. I don't remember being offended, mainly because I was so enchanted. Every new Beatles song was magical to me, & I consumed it uncritically.

Later on, of course, when making mix tapes of Beatles songs for playing in my car or whatever, I would notice certain things - particularly that I almost never put a song on a tape that Paul McCartney sang - but that period of attacking my idols would come later, when I just got exhausted that people listened to this one band & nothing else. As if music started & stopped with them. That is an attitude I find exceedingly dull.

When listening to the White Album a few months ago, & thinking about this show, I made it a point to listen to the whole thing (& expecting to hear static at the appropriate times from the old tape - when will I forget that?) & to think about why I liked it so much. I think it's because it's the one Beatles record that seems like solo records from each of the Beatles, but with all the other Beatles playing on them. John Lennon's stuff is of course astonishing. George Harrison manages to be interesting, promising something he would never deliver ("Long Long Long" may be the greatest song he ever wrote), Ringo's song is a throwaway, like his solo career, & Paul McCartney manages feeble homage, treacle, tedium & schmaltz. (& yes, I think "Helter Skelter" is overrated. If I must listen to it, I listen to hear Ringo get blisters on his fingers.) The record, in a remarkable way, predicts the careers of the Beatles a couple of years before the split - although, it's fair to note, they were really already beginning to split.

I think that's why it's so cool. & by the way, the songs covered by the people above - with the exception of "Wild Honey Pie," they're all exclusively Lennon songs.

This Friday I will have the entire White Album covered in my grubby hands - yes, I even found a cover of "Revolution 9" - but I probably won't get to play it all. What I will play, though - well, you'll have to listen in, won't you?

Preface To The White Album Covered: Whatever Happened To Those "Beatles" Anyway?

Need I remind you it's Membership Drive time at KOOP? You may not have wanted to give to Self Help Radio last week (I did poorly) but you do want to keep a station like KOOP on the air. Give early, give often.

This week I will pay tribute to a band known as "The Beatles" - in particular a record of theirs called "The Beatles." Since that record was issued with a kind of solid beige cover, the band wanted it to be known as "The Beige Album." Alas, it did not sell very well, & many copies were placed in the windows of record stores all over the world to keep the sun out. This tended to bleach the record's cover, & now it's known as "The White Album."

"The Beatles" were rumored to be from England. The band had four members, not including the father of one of the band members, George Sr., who did the production & was also rumored have killed the band's manager. As well, the band had its own swami, an Anglican bishop, a circus seal, a Japanese artist, their very own drugstore, & Bob Dylan on their speed dial. The four members wrote songs individually, but two of the members, one out of jealousy & the other just to be funny, signed their names to the each other's songs. The record had over nine hundred songs on it, but because of a miscalculation with the record company, only around 25 actually made it on to the disc.

As of 2007, no one knows what happened to this mysterious group, although there are rumors that one of them, the lead guitarist, became a famous porn star & died in the first Gulf War. Another rumor insists that "Beatle" who seemed the smartest was killed & eaten by the FBI, since J Edgar Hoover believed, like some cannibals, that if you eat a person you absorb their knowledge, & he always wanted to write a song. Some people even think that at least two of the "Beatles" are still alive, though there's no evidence for this. Seriously.

However, in certain hip circles, "The White Album" became a cult classic, & Self Help Radio this week will show how influential it has been by playing several of the songs covered. It's a great time to become a member of KOOP because the show itself will be great. Who knows? Maybe more people will want to hear more of these "Beatles"?

Tomorrow: but why do it? Is someone making me?

A Friday Plea

This Friday post is deadly serious. KOOP's Spring 2007 Membership Drive starts today & it's your chance to not only support Austin's best radio station, but also to become part of an exciting experiment in locally-controlled media. It's a win-win for all of us!

What? You think radio doesn't matter? Well, consider this story:

It's 1861, & in Charleston, South Carolina, there are only four radio stations. Three of them are owned by Plantation Media, the same group that owns all the radio in the South & a lot in the North. (After the Civil War, they became Clear Channel.) However, a plucky band of communists, anarchists, freed slaves & other "uppity" folk (as the late Molly Ivins would call them) run a community radio station which plays more than the faux English music & the annoying anti-Abolitionist screeds that the Plantation Media (a subsidiary of Fox) plays non-stop. In fact, it was this small station, called Radio Longfellow, that the first blues were ever played on the radio. Recordings of Thomas Paine & Thomas Jefferson were played often. The now-infamous "Russion Explosion Hour" featured live remotes with Tolstoy & Bakunin - all on a very limited budget. The owners of this station were harassed & persecuted by the elite slaveowners of South Carolina - but enough of the citizenry supported them that they stayed on the air. What a glorious time it was for radio!

Alas, when the Confederates started firing on Fort Sumter, a renegade Confederate officer named Clement Thurmond (a great great grand-uncle of Strom Thurmond) turned his cannon around & fired straight into the studios of Radio Longfellow, putting them off the air permanently. Why would he do such a thing? Because the station violently opposed secession, & they were starting to turn the people of Charleston around. Yes, some among the new Confederate ranks felt that a radio station was more of a threat than a garrison of Union soldiers.

Imagine! Those pesky volunteers could have stopped the Civil War! & nearly a century & a half later, radio is more vital than ever. That's why you want to support it, baby.

What? There were no radio stations in 1861? Whatever. The point is the same. Could radio have stopped the United States Civil War? Discuss among yourselves.

Alas! There will be no "Song Of The Day" today. I must rush to the station to help with the Membership Drive. Please please please tune in & please please please give to KOOP radio. You know in your hearts why it's important.

Your Letters Are Troublemakers! (But I Answer Them Anyway)

I answer letters every Thursday on this blog. There is no topic which I won't write about. So write me an email!

Here's a mostly made-up letter from a strictly speaking imaginary person we'll call "Rose."

He writes:

So, seriously Gary, what's so important about the Membership Drive?

I am glad you asked, man named Rose. (What?) You hear a lot of "pledge drives" & "membership drives" & fundraising efforts & it seems like everyone has them, but they don't. The crappy ass commercial radio stations you're always switching away from when they play crappy ass ads don't have to have fund-raising events because those crappy ass ads you're always avoiding - you know, when you switch over to KOOP - they pay for the station.

Why doesn't KOOP have ads? Or, maybe, you ask, doesn't KOOP have ads? We have something like them called underwriting announcements, but there are strict rules on what those spots can say. & - be honest - they're not nearly as annoying as commercial radio ads. & maybe because of those rules, KOOP doesn't make a lot of money from underwriting - we make our money to survive during these membership drives.

So. Here's the answer: we need the drive to survive. That's what's so important.

If you can give, please give. I'll have special premiums & I'll put on astonishingly good shows. You must therefore give. What would a world without Self Help Radio be like? Would you want to live in that world? Think about how fucked-up the world is outside of Austin - they can't hear Self Help Radio on the radio there. That's the problem with the world! So don't turn Austin into the rest of the world. Support KOOP & support Self Help Radio.

Speaking of, my show from last Friday is available for download in a podcast-sized mp3 ball. Click here - it's at the top of this page. Goes well with copious amounts of alcohol.

Today's "Song Of The Day" is a shabby psychedelic nugget by Houston's own the Red Krayola from their first record The Parable Of Arable Land. Click this name: Hurricane Fighter Plane for enlightenment. I will keep it available for two weeks. Then it's bye bye.

Tomorrow: the Membership Drive starts, I salute the Godfather Of Soul. You give lots of money to a worthy cause. Gird your loins. It's coming!

Whither James Brown - Sampled?

I was talking yesterday about how I keep my teeth clean with two parts shoe polish & one part vodka - but I wasn't talking about it here so I hope you're not confused. I carry on conversations in more than one dimension THANK YOU VERY MUCH & if you can't keep up, I will walk a little more slowly.

When James Brown died, nearly everyone on KOOP, recognizing the importance of this great artist in all our lives (let's be honest - they wouldn't be nearly as funky without him), paid some tribute or other. When I returned from Europe, I played him on my show that week - but only one track. I wanted to do something special.

During a Spirit Walk with my guru, Herb, I realized that, although I could breathe James Brown like air for days on end, it might be fun to see what really creative types (unlike my poor self) did with James Brown. I thought first of covers. Then I came out from under the covers. I was covered in shame. My guru, Herb, was covered in ghee. Don't ask. We communicated psychically - or maybe we were muttering under our breath - anyway, we decided that "covers" wasn't good enough.

Herb mentioned that James Brown was the most sampled artist in the world. I was a little embarrassed about this until Herb explained it was his music that was sampled, not him personally. He totally thinks I'm a prude. He says I'm the only spirit that turns up to a Spirit Walk completely clothed. He says, in fact, that I should perhaps LOOSEN THE FUCK UP.

I discovered that not only hip-hop artists have sampled the Godfather. & you can listen to my favorites of those intrepid folk Friday on my show!

Plus - it's a Membership Drive show, so please, wake the neighbors, call in favors, burden your family & steal from your work, but try to help KOOP out with a little cash. We do such good work for you & for the community, but we need to pay the bills. Besides - where else in this town would you find a Self Help Radio?

My "Song Of The Day" is a pretty song I played on my South By Some Some show, but you can listen to it here in better quality mp3 ism. It's from My Latest Novel from Scotland, from their debut record Wolves. It's called Sister Sneaker Sister Soul. Click to enjoy. Enjoy it until April 11. Then it goes away.

Preface To My James Brown Tribute: Will I Get Arrested For Sampling Samples?

James Brown actually came to Austin last summer. Did I see him? No, I didn't. Wanna know why? Because I'm a moron & there's a spiteful part of me that says "Since you couldn't see him at the Apollo in the 60s, when he was arguably at his best, you shouldn't see him now." Why do I do that? I don't know. But I do now regret it.

When James Brown died on Christmas Day last year, I was about to get on a plane to go to Europe. Someone else died around the same time - maybe an old president or something, whatever, nothing big - it occured to me that, even if some corrupt old lawmaker or other passed laws that somehow affected me in regards to the environment, taxes, education, etc., what I am most concerned with is the inner life I lead - the part of me that needs music in the way that politicians need power or religious folks need to believe - & in that part of me, James Brown's legacy, from the music he made to the music made with the music he made to the music he influenced - he touched me life in the way nearly no one else could have.

With typical speed, I am now getting to the tribute. Why the way I am doing it? Er, I'll talk about tomorrow. I am busy listening to hip hop songs trying to guess if that's a JB sample or not. Hmmmm.

Today's "Song Of The Day" is an outsider music track by the amazing Shooby Taylor - The Human Horn from Irwin Chusid's wonderful compilation Songs In The Key Of Z. The song is Stout-Hearted Men & even though it'll be gone in two weeks, you can find more of them on the page I link to up there.

Tomorrow: I'll try to be funny. But I miss James Brown.

If It Was Michigan Friday, It's A Monday Wrap

Thank you so much for tuning in last Friday as I broadcast Self Help Radio from a flaming asteroid hurtling toward Michigan. I'm so sorry we accidentally hit Ontario. That's my bad. I was totally listening to Bush administration scientists. I won't do that again!

We did have some haiku winners, though, & they won with these winning haikus:

FOURTH PLACE: Scott
Car stalled in Detroit
Arrested in Grand Rapids
We cannot escape

THIRD PLACE: Michelle
Take me to that state
That’s stuck between three Great Lakes
Rad peninsula!

SECOND PLACE: Chris
Lonely Michigan
Losing its songs & its jobs
Sleep in a snowbank

FIRST PLACE: Barbara
I need something new
Winter's lasted way too long
Sing your sweet spring song

& the mystery limerick writer wrote this:

My wife, she divorced me in Michigan
I lived all alone & got rich again
     We went for dinner & dancing
     The week I visited Lansing
& now she wants us to get hitched again!

This week is the start of the Spring 2007 Membership Drive so we may not have time for haiku. But maybe if you write a good one, we'll make the time. This week's show is a tribute to James Brown featuring my favorite hip-hop songs that sample him. It'll be very worth giving your money to you bet.

Today's "Song Of The Day" is by a sweet little English band called Magoo from their first record, The Soateramic Sounds Of Magoo. The song is called A To Z & Back Again, & click it to listen to it from a to z. It'll zoom away on April 9, 2007.

Tomorrow: the day I met James Brown & sampled him, & other crazy lies.

A Friday Caper

Friends, in less than two hours there will be a show on the radio so magnificient, so incredible, so embarrassingly good that you'll believe that radio is a transformative medium. You'll believe radio can change lives, as your life will be changed. You will never be able to think or feel in the same way again.

Unfortunately, I don't know which station that show's on. I'll place good odds it's not on in Austin - I mean, have you heard the radio in this town? Embarassing, that's what it is. Anyway, if you can find it, give me a call. But if you can't, & you've got nothing better to do, tune in to Self Help Radio today at 4:30pm either on your FM dial at 91.7 fm or on your computer dial (what?) over at koop.org. The show today's all about Michigan. It'll be for more than just Yoopers & Trolls.

Tune in! I'll be making tea!

Here's a funny "Song Of The Day" by the Smothers Brothers, from their record Think Ethic. It's called I Never Will Marry - click on it to listen. It's here till April 5, 2007.

Do tune in today!

Your Letters Are Stinky! (But I Answer Them Anyway)

LB asks me:

Gary, How was SXSW? Did you see good bands?

Thank you for asking, LB. & no, I still don't want to be your myspace friend. Your page is creepy.

I went to the KOOP Indiepop Hootenanny so I could see Tullycraft for free, then I went to see Mark Burgess since he's a fucking legend, but other than that, nah, I didn't do much. I did hang out some at KOOP, where we were playing lots of live bands in the studio, but didn't help or anything. That's all. Mainly my girlfriend & I planned to completely redecorate our backyard. Buffalo grass, anyone?

Oh god! What a boring blog post this is! Let's start again.

During South By South Wets I hung out with [super famous dude] who scored drugs from [someone who works for the Onion], & we were totally [tripping/zoning/rolling/vomiting] until we managed to sneak backstage at [some place that it's hard to sneak into] & caught [the band you wanted to see but couldn't because douchebags from the Chronicle filled the place up] & they were [disappointing/awesome/as fucked up as I was/dead]! Then someone put [whatever I haven't yet taken] into my drink, & I found myself with [Andy Dick] in a hottub in the back of [dull Hollywood type who's moved to Austin in the past few years]'s limo doing [things I'd later regret]. How I got home I'll never know. & dude, that was just WEDNESDAY!

Thursday, Friday & Saturday I spent in intensive care.

Write me an email! I'll answer it here!

Here's a sad little "Song Of The Day" by so-called "anti-folk" musician Jeffrey Lewis from his first record, The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane & Other Favorites. It's a sad little ditty about Leonard Cohen, meeting people on the street & trying desperately to stay upbeat in spite of everything. It's called The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song & you can click to hear it. I'll leave it here for two weeks - until April 5 - & then it'll go away.

Tomorrow at 4:30 pm Austin time - yowsa! A show about Michigan!

Whither Michigan?

I mentioned before I've never been to Michigan. I'll mention it again. I'll mention again that I've never been to Michigan. There. I mentioned it again. I'll mention it unknowingly at some point during the next few minutes as well. There's hardly any self-consciousness between me & my travels. Either I've been some place or I haven't. I've never been to the moon, for example, but also I've never been an astronaut. Nor is my name "Buzz." It's Gary. In case you haven't noticed.

Sometime last February, in-between Bush Administration Fuck-Ups, I was sitting at the bus stop, minding my own business, wondering, as I sometimes do, how I got there (it was four in the morning) & who had signed my nipples. Since it was dark, & I was looking down at my nipples, I couldn't read the text (it was upside down), but later I discovered that a professional Ray Davies impersonator signed my nipples at a karaoke bar when I was pretending to be a police detective & would simply walk up to people with a megaphone, flash what looked like a badge but what was really my iPod, & scream "AMBER ALERT!" Strangely enough, the Ray Davies impersonator decided to sign my nipples "Paul Harvey." It was a good night, & I thank whoever it was who told me that cough syrup & permanent markers were a foot in the door of madness. I lost my shoe in that door that night.

Anyway, while I was sitting at the bus stop, trying to read my nipples, I became aware of a man sleeping on the ground behind the bench. He was muttering something to himself in his sleep. Naturally, him being asleep, I didn't expect him to be saying anything that would make sense, & I was right. He would shudder occasionally & his words were at turns inaudible & almost yelled out. I remember a few snatches of his dream babble:

He's got me!... I never loved Annie... What's love got to do, got to do with it?... Five'll get you ten he won't be able to find his underwear tomorrow... Buy refuse, sell trash... What's love but a second-hand emotion?... Indeed, this particular theorum stumped even the Pythogorians!... There's no way to find suspicious files in your mailboxes... Seriously - who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?... Annie! Annie!

I listened to his soliloquy for some time until I realized that the bus doesn't come at 4am. Also, my nipples (I discovered) are allergic to magic markers, so I began to experience some uncomfortable burning sensations in my man-breasts. So I began to raise myself & find my way home, when the sleeping man grabbed my leg. I couldn't make out his face, but he was bellowing at me something I couldn't understand. So I said, "Let me go!" He didn't let me go. I screamed, "I'll call the cops!' Nothing. I tried to get free while pleading to the night, "Please dear lord don't let me die at the hands of a man who dreams in Tina Turner songs!" He seemed to clutch me tighter. A cloud went behind the moon. A streetlight went out & a car down the street burst into flames (although it could have been a lingering cough syrup hallucination). I fell to the ground, skinning my knees & my palms, & I said, "No, no, no! I've never even been to Michigan!"

I didn't know that "Michigan" was the safe word of Annie, the strange old man's S&M partner. He let me go & offered to buy me breakfast. We ate that morning by the dumpsters outside IHOP & became fast friends. I dedicate this week's show - & the inspiration for it - to him.

By the way, that man was none other than GERALD MCRANEY. As if you didn't know.

Quick! A "Song Of The Day"! By Rodd Keith! From the collection Ecstasy To Frenzy! The song my girlfriend wants to dance to at our wedding: Little Rug Bug! Click to listen! Listen until April 4, 2007! Find out more about Song-Poems!

Preface To Michigan: What's So Great About Your Lakes?

I've never been to Michigan. Never even drove through. The closest I've been is Chicago. So why do a show about Michigan? Oh, wait. I'll answer that tomorrow.

Here's some fun facts about Michigan:

* It's the one state in the United States that didn't finish high school, but skipped a grade in elementary school.
* Michigan's name comes from a foreign word meaning something appropriate to the state.
* 1 in 4 people in Michigan have appeared (whether they like it or not) in a Michael Moore film.
* Super stuntman Elvis Knelvis once tried to jump Michigan in a motor boat. He sped west from Lake Huron into Saginaw Bay & tore up a three-mile-long ramp southwesterly, hoping to land in Lake Michigan outside Holland. Instead, his boat capsized & he was eaten by an electric eel.
* The Michigan-Ohio border is heavily fortified, but no one really knows why. Some blame it on Motown.
* No American president has ever come from Michigan. Gerald Ford claimed to be from Michigan, but, as his untimely death revealed earlier this year, he was an imaginary president.
* People from Michigan are called Michiganians, Michiganders, Michigeese, Michiganites, Michigolliwogs, or Jeff.
* Porcupine Mountains State Park is a totally cool place to hook up with your squeeze & to score some killer local weed. Go to the Park Ranger Station & ask for Canada Joe. If possible, bring a trinket. He collects commemorative spoons. He'll totally set you up.
* Michigan has more lighthouses that any other state, except perhaps Utah. Just think about it, it makes sense.
* There is a place called Podunk, Michigan. My brother said I was making it up but I wasn't. I also wasn't making up Timbuktu so stop being a baby & come look at this map. Mom!

Did you want to hear a "Song Of The Day"? Here's one that has almost nothing to do with Michigan, except that it's about a popular pasttime in Dearborn. It's from a compilation called Dirtnap Across The Northwest, which is a rock/indie rock/punk/garage kind of comp. "Dirtnap" is an anagram of "Dr. Paint." I just noticed that. Anyway, the song is by the Exploding Hearts & it's called Sniffin' Glue. Click to sniff. Do it before April 3, 2007. Then it goes away.

Tomorrow: why sniffing glue is an epidemic in Michigan, & how that led an intrepid deejay to focus on it on a special Self Help Radio profile!

Two Times The Monday Wrap-Ups At Four Times The Price

Well, another "Sowf By Sowf Vest" has gone by & what have we learned? That's a rhetorical question. I spent most of the weekend doing yard work.

Since I missed two weeks of wrap-ups, let's go ahead & share two whole weeks of haikus & limericks.

First: my "SXSW" show. Haiku winners, from fourth to first place:

FOURTH PLACE: Joe
Here is the lost man
He can’t find the Austin bar
He’s playing tonight

THIRD PLACE: Gail
You feel unwanted?
Remember: you did not get
An invitation.

SECOND PLACE: Dave
Watch the grand monkey
He’s overstimulated
There’s too much to do!

FIRST PLACE: Stacy
A heart left behind
No lights capture drunken sleep
Bed of my own filth

& a limerick:

It’s said that the best of the best
Come here during South By Southwest
    But once you’ve attended
    & cash you have spended
You’ll see they’re as bad as the rest.

Yippee!

Last week was a tribute to Molly Ivins. Here are the winning haikus:

FOURTH PLACE: Susan
Never met, now gone
Strange an emptiness appears
Missing someone's words

THIRD PLACE: John
Rules are gonna change
If there's no beer in heaven
She'll brew the first batch

SECOND PLACE: Marcos
Like the best ideas
Both familiar & new, she
Made me laugh & think

FIRST PLACE: Rachel
Molly Molly I
Made me laugh & made me cry
Good Molly goodbye

What? Another limerick? Sure:

If life's all about survivin'
Cheatin', backstabbin', connivin',
    How sad that our poor sphere
    Has less to fight with here
Losing dear old Molly Ivins.

& lo & behold: the "Song Of The Day" returns. I was feeling electronical today & was listening to The Black Dog - specifically the record Silenced. I thought you might like to hear some too. This is the first track, called Trojan Horus (Part 1) & you can click on it to hear it. It'll be up for two weeks, until April 2 2007.

This week: I learned how to speak Michiganese to explain to you why my show this week is about Michigan!

What The Hell Happened To The Self Help Radio Blog?

Oh, I'm sorry. I got sick. This week is "South By West South" in Austin & I usually take the week off (but not because I got sick) (that happened this time) (I hope it doesn't become a yearly thing). It's been raining a lot, as well. Not that that keeps me from blogging, since I rarely blog outdoors, but it seemed something I could add for people who like local color.

This blog thing will resume its normal course next Monday. Until then, here are three important things to know:

1) If you want to hear my radio show from last week, where I played songs by bands I like who coincidentally happen to be coming to town for the "music festival" which happens around this time every year in Austin (although, contrary to popular belief, it did not happen in the years 1862-1865, because of the Civil War), you can do that now over at the Self Help Radio home page. Think of it as a way to listen to my radio show even when it's not Friday.

2) Speaking of Friday, this Friday I am paying tribute to a great Texan named Molly Ivins. I never met her, although she spent a lot of time in Austin, but I've been reading her since I was aware there was a funny, brash, smart, dissenting voice out there that didn't sound like anyone else. My show will still be mostly music, but if you're lucky, I may cry.

3) There'll be no "Songs Of The Days" this week. Sorry. Find other blogs that do that. There are lots.

Have fun this week, whether you're in Austin or not. I'll be back next Monday.