Aren't You Funny

I know, these sorts of things are just someone's opinion (I for one would have had a LOT more Mr. Show & a LOT less Saturday Night Live) but if you want to be amused, do have a look at nerve.com's 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time. It's an amusing distraction.

What would I have included that's not there? The possibilities are endless, really. For one, the Chicken Lady sketch from Kids In The Hall I would have added is not the one they pick. I like the one - which is the first Chicken Lady sketch I ever saw - with the blind date with Dave Foley. "I'm a chicken lady & I love life!" "I didn't think you meant it literally..." But so much of what they did was so absurd that it's only funny because it's so damn weird. That's awesome.

Which reminds me - League Of Gentlemen, anyone?

As for Mr Show - I have so many of those episodes memorized, it would be hard to say. But I'd leave out a couple of those dull SNL sketches for Thrill World & Druggachusetts because, frankly, they're funnier.

I can't believe they missed the single funniest SCTV sketch ever - Night School Hi-Q. Lugubrious!

& there's nothing from the Ben Stiller show? Really? I think that the "MTV Music News" sketch (I said kill Doug Szathkey!) would have been a great companion piece to the In Living Color Vanilla Ice parody. & what about Die Hard 12? Oliver Stone Land? Woody Allen's Bride of Frankenstein? Cape Munster?

Lists like this are always woefully incomplete, because tastes are different. But maybe you'll find some funny there for yourself.

Whither Gravity?

Here's what a weirdo Isaac Newton was: Read ten strange facts about Newton. Are they that strange? I mean, come on. It was, what, the seventeenth century? Shit was fucked up then. Everyone I've known who was able to see the world a different way than everyone else was completely batshit crazy. It makes sense that, in a world where there are a substantial number of batshit crazy folks, a handful would be brilliant. Sadly, the majority of them become religious or political. Luckily some of them become scientists.

I like that gravity is not completely understood. I like that it's a fundamentally weak force, if only because, when you explain that to astrologers, they get all vexed. (You know, "If gravity's so strong why can this little magnet counteract it so simply?") I like those drawing of gravity lines around massive objects illustrating the "space-time continuum." I love listening to the dreamers who imagine we'll beat the speed limit of light by using gravity to "bend" space. Forget all that nonsense about sin & redemption - that's just about control of your thoughts & your person. Close your eyes & imagine a gravity well dipping into a black hole drawing out incredible energies. Hell, close your eyes & imagine launching yourself into orbit on a small moon. You're a super hero in space!

Most songs about gravity are about gravity as a metaphor - either of "attraction" or of rebellion against physical laws. But there are songs, too, celebrating that batshit crazy Newton dude & what he thought up while the city of London was dying of the plague. Yay! One of the last Self Help Radio shows on the radio will be a science show!

Preface To Gravity: What Comes Up Must Not Be Discussed

Yes, it was a picture of a dog barking at Jesus. The dog is a beagle named George. Jesus is a plastic statue in a graveyard. Please stop writing me poems about it!

That's the thing: I don't really mind poems. I like them. I write them myself, in my skin, with a razor & a bottle of Softsoap. & oftentimes, yes, I write them about pictures of dogs barking at kitschy representations of old-fashioned deities. But I don't send them to anyone. I certainly wouldn't send them to you.

For example, why would anyone send this to anyone, especially me:

   You don't love me Jesus
   Because I am a hound
   So I'll continue peeing
   On your hallowed ground

But Gary, is this so bad? Yes. It's bad for two reasons. First of all, George is himself an accomplished poet (as well as an accomplished urinator), so he can write poems from his own point of view when necessary (although he prefers to write from an "everydog" perspective). He simply doesn't need you to write poems from his vantage point. Secondly, it's not a very good poem. It doesn't really capture the essence of the photograph & it doesn't really explain why the dog thinks Jesus doesn't love him. Frankly, it doesn't scan.

What about the free verse poems I'm getting? As always, the free verse is worse:

   Beagle orphaned on crisp sunny day
   Lack a day! Lackadaisical!
   Alone, alone, but wait! alone,
   with nearer my god to thee
   porcelain plastic messiah!

I know, what the fuck?!? (By the way, "lackadaisical" comes from "lackaday," smart guy. What've you been doing, reading the Word Detective or something? Sheesh.) I would have been more impressed if the writer had rhymed something with "lackadaisical."

Enough! The three or four people who read this blog read it to find out if I have gone completely off the deep end, not to hear your poetry about photographs on blogs. Now please, let me write about the topics I'll cover on my show, & leave your poetry to other radio shows that deserve them. That one about the Lake in Minnesota, for example. Write to them.

Now I've got to go & explain this to George...

Torso Pants

My month of April has gotten off to a grand start, how about yours? I am of course talking about the wildflowers! What did you think I was talking about? A hundred thousand dollar bar? Or maybe a grand piano?

I offer, for your edification, a dog in a cemetery full of wildflowers, barking at Jesus:



I should also mention that Self Help Radio started the month of April off with a show entirely about cheese. Mmm, cheese. Did you miss it? Or would you like seconds? Well, the cheese buffet is open over at selfhelpradio.net. Dig in!

4 Shows To Go!

Omigosh! We're in the final stretch! Only four shows to go!

I am going to resist listing famous foursomes - no Fantastic Four, nothing about calling birds - & instead warn you that the best is yet to come. You heard me! You might just fucking love to listen to Self Help Radio on your boring-ass ride home from your sanity-crippling job, & you may be relying on it on Fridays in the same way you used to need to visit a prostitute to be spanked for being very, very bad - but it'll soon be gone, my friend. There'll be another KOOP program. It won't be Self Help Radio.

But even though I'm pretty sure the KOOP program that will occupy the timeslot then will be fine & you'll barely remember, weeks from now, how Self Help Radio loved you long time, I will just let you know - as a kindness, as a public service - it could be an admonition, it could be a promise, it could be a simple piece of information - I must let you know that Self Help Radio is nowhere near meeting its potential. You heard me! The best is yet to come!

You'd hate to miss it, now, wouldn't you?

So make sure you either bookmark the Self Help Radio home page or send me an email to be reminded of the podcasts. Because you will regret missing it, in the same way you regret that last glass of whiskey every night around 2:30 am. Or you'll regret it the way I regret that last glass of whiskey. It tastes so good but it hurts so bad.

If you must listen on the real radio with real radio waves, then fine: today at 4:30, a show about cheese. Delicious!

Does Humor Belong On The Radio?

Dunno, but you're not as funny as you think you are. Nor am I as funny as you wish I were. Or will be. Or may be. Or.

Once upon a time - not too long ago - seriously, it's what they call "the recent past," which is I suppose the antonym of "the near future" now that I think about it - anyway, a programmer (who may or may not have actually been a medical professional) called Dr Debra did a novelty show. She did it mainly on the interwebbing, but fortunes changed, stations caught fire, & she got an fm slot on Wednesday late mornings.

Alas! Life takes its toll! The whims & phlegms of fate sadly forced the doctor to move her practice to the untamed wilderness some have called Oklahoma. What to do? Well, some valiant KOOPers have attempted to take her place until the end of the season. & God help me, I am one.

You can listen to my sub show from yesterday at the Self Help Radio home page site thing. There are songs about medical conditions, songs about bananas, & a song about a famous Basset Hound, among other things. Ha ha! I say. Ha ha!

Will I be asked to step in again? Is there any penalty for impersonating a funny doctor? Who knows? Oh the winds & phlegms of fate!

Whither Cheese?

Seriously, you have to ask?

You've obviously never heard my radio show.

Preface To Cheese: The Rot That Changes Lives

Oh, it's true. You can smoke your own cheese. But making it? Is making your own cheese what you really want to do?

The way (not the whey, thank you) I feel about cheese is similar to the way most people who eat meat (I don't eat meat) feel about killing animals themselves. Most every meat-eating human you know could never, never, never kill a cow & process it to make themselves a burger. They just couldn't. Luckily, they can go to their local McWendy's-In-The-Whatabox King. Someone else somewhere else did the dirty work & even better, it doesn't look anything like a cow!

Similarly I with cheese. I couldn't make it. It would be hazardous to my eating of it. & I love cheese. Not all cheese types, & not all the time, but cheese as a delicious idea oh yes I love.

Hey! I might be able to make processed cheese, if all it took was mixing human-made chemicals in a test tube & then baking some possibly edible polymer. Mmm. I'd color it funky colors, too. Neon blue cheese anyone?

Damn, talking about this makes me hanker for a hunk o'cheese!

A Layman's Guide To Videos About Sleep On Youtube

I am sitting here at work trying to get some project-related stuff done & for some reason I am listening to Woody Guthrie. It's making me feel weird. Partially because it's tropical outside. Partially because it's always weird to hear someone call Jesus Christ "a working man" in a song. That dude never worked a day in his life. He lived off the trust fund his dad set up for him.

Anyway, there are three things to say today, & the first of them is to say there are three things to say. Wait. That can't be right.

The second is: if you missed last Friday's television theme song spectacular, you can hear it again (as I've been saying) in reruns (har har) over at selfhelpradio.net. I call it the TV Show but it's really just a bunch of weird covers of television themes. It's like remembering your childhood with a lot of other people's memories.

I also wanted to make sure that YOU know that after I finish my run of Self Help Radio on KOOP, I am continuing the show as a podcast. How will you know? You never come to this blog! You don't write me anymore! When was the last time you invited me over to your house for drinks & dancing? Since we're obviously not as close as we used to be, maybe you should send me an email & tell me to remind you when I post new podcasts. One lousy email. & I don't drink all your whiskey.

I swear there were three things I wanted to say. Maybe the last was me saying that there were three things but obviously I'm dumb & I forgot the last one. Or maybe I just thought it was three because it's handy to have three things to say at any given time. Oh well. Back to Woody Guthrie. Damn these dust storms!

5 Shows To Go!

That's right. One more show in KOOP's Membership Drive, & a month's worth of shows after that. There, there. Stop your sobbing. Or I'll send Ray Davies. He's a real prick when people are crying.

Self Help Radio won't end! You can always go to the Self Help Radio website & there'll be new shows until I land elsewhere! & probably until I die! After that, not so much. Send me an email, I'll make sure you're notified when a new show is posted.

Meanwhile, KOOP Membership Drive goes on. Listen today & make a pledge at koop.org, or call in when I'm on the air live, Texas time, 4:30 to 6pm. The station that makes uncomfortable programming like Self Help Radio possible needs your help.

I need a shower & a shave. See you at 4:30!

March Madness!

Is it still March Madness? Does that have anything to do with the great actor Frederic March? Am I total geek or what?

I am happy to write that, although it's almost April, I have posted this month's Self Help Radio Extra. It's a CD-long mix of awesome tunes without any talking from me at all. Well, I might be a voice in your head. I can't help that.

So please visit the Self Help Radio website for a special mix from me to you. Because I am fond of you. There. I said it.

Whither The TV Show?

The Self Help Radio website says this week's theme is "The TV Show" but that's bit misleading. It's not going to be a show about television. It's going to be a show featuring covers of television theme songs. It's just that "The TV Show" sounds so good, I thought it better than "The TV Theme Song Show," which would have been far more accurate but doesn't really roll off the tongue.

So, a show about television theme songs. Should be fun, right? Wrong! It'll be FUN. All caps. Unless you're one of those weirdoes who doesn't watch television or - oh God it's too much to contemplate - worse if you're one of those people who DIDN'T WATCH TV AS A CHILD. I remember a moment - a rare moment - when, as a kid, I was talking to a girl - I think her named was Tracy - & I was talking about something I saw on a TV show the nice before, & she said, "My parents don't let me watch television." I was horrified. I felt like I should perhaps call Child Services or something. Unbelievable & cruel.

My love of music inevitably meant some of my favorite songs in the world would be television themes. I want to say a sad goodbye in public to the television theme song, by the way. Most network shows these days don't have theme songs, because the amount of time (now nearly twenty minutes per hour) given to advertisers means there's barely any time to spare, so new shows generally now have an intro screen & run the credits over the first few minutes of the show. Not on cable, though - HBO shows still have credits, for example. Maybe my show is also a eulogy & funeral service for the Network TV theme song. It died young!

I hope I didn't confuse anyone, at any rate. I just like to say "The TV Show." It sounds good.

Preface To The TV Show: Insert Something About TV On The Radio Here

Do you wonder where weird verbal habits you get come from? For example, when you say something rude or ridiculous or self-deprecating & you say, as your friends or whoever's around is laughing (you hope), "Did I say that out loud?" I do that occasionally, & it gets chuckles, & of course I've seen it on television & in movies, but I can't remember the first time I ever heard it. Maybe it didn't have much effect on me when I first heard it, but repetition made it more desirable to add to my idiom vocabulary.

One thing I say - like, way too much - is a play on the phrase "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." I like to say, "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it," which was, I thought, my clever way of mixing up the two phrases, the one above & the phrase "Don't burn your bridges behind you." Man I thought I was cool.

About two years ago, I was watching Nick At Nite or something & they were playing old episodes of "Three's Company." I watched that show straight through my childhood, even watching the "sequel" "Three's A Crowd," such was my devotion. So imagine my surprise when one of the characters - probably Chrissy - used the phrase, as an obvious mistake, worthy of a double take, "I can burn that bridge when I get to it."

How could I not have gotten that phrase from that particular episode?

It's time like this when I wonder what kind of personality I would have if it hadn't been for television. Discuss among yourselves.

X-Ray Isis

No, I don't know what the title of today's blog entry means. It came to me in a dream. A dream about a city being slightly scrubbed & left to dry in the warm Spring sun. Until - you know the rest - dragons!

That one dreams about dragons (or pimps, for that matter) shouldn't be much of a concern in this, our HBO universe. But should one brings one's dreams' inspirations to other aspects of their lives? I believe the answer may well be found in some of the most recent dream research research, which has found that people who spend a lot of time listening to other people's dream are mostly bored stiff. However, the small amount of folks who choose to pay attention (or "interpret") other people's dreams have an interest proportional to the amount of money being paid to them. & indeed, if the answer is there, the answer could be anywhere.

But scientists & people named Flower (who are never allowed to be scientists) have instead found that the answer to nearly any question can in fact be answered by people who are drinking tea. This astonishing discovery is not in the least diminished by the fact that the same could be said about most drinks (excluding buttermilk), & in the spirit of dreams & tea & also dreams, Self Help Radio explored tea in a dainty matter on last Friday's show. The subject of which was tea.

It's available to be listened to at selfhelpradio.net. I suggest you bring milk & sugar if you like that with your radio shows. Also, we're all out of cookies. Sorry. They went like cookie cakes. Is that the right expression?

6 Shows To Go!

Six is a magic number. It is the number of beers, sodas & wine coolers in an appropriately-named six-pack. When two sixes are together, they can be a retired age or a famous route. Also, if three sixes are near each other, they signify a beast. This doesn't apparently happen with four sixes, which is a time in the distant future when the United States finally gets out of Iraq.

Six is the number of the shows I have left on KOOP. Do I have to keep saying that I plan to continue Self Help Radio as an obscure podcast? (From an obscure radio show to an obscure podcast! Ha!) Okay, I won't.

I should continue to remind you that KOOP is having its Spring Membership Drive, so you most certainly should be giving money to this fine radio station. If you do it during Self Help Radio (which is today, you know, from 4:30 to 6pm), it'll be a small salve to my damaged self-esteem, but if you do it during any other time, I don't mind - the money is for non-commercial radio, not my booze fund.

Listen! It'll be a tea party!

Talk To The Bears (In The Bear Suits)

I had the great pleasure to talk to Iain & Jan of Norwich England's proudest children, Bearsuit, when they were stranded here last weekend for SXSSSSS. Much thanks to that precocious little peanut, Lace, for letting me interrupt Ear Candy for the interview. If you want to hear the chat we had, along with a few Bearsuit tunes, you can listen in the usual place: selfhelpradio.net.

I remind you: soon I won't be on the radio & will only exist as a disembodied podcast. If you want to be reminded when my new podcasts come around, send me an email & I'll put you on a list. I'll be glad you care.

Whither Tea?

Why thank you! I will have a cup of tea. Two sugars please. Thanks so much.

This isn't herbal tea, is it? Ah, good! That's not really tea, now, is it? No, it's just some twigs & leaves disguised as tea. You & I know the difference, don't we! We don't just enjoy tea - we're not just tea enthusiasts, are we, no! We're lovers of tea & scholars of tea!

Quick! Name the four kinds of tea! You got it! Black tea, oolong tea, green tea & white tea. Say! Are those cookies over there? Don't mind if I do.

Do you know, some people don't even know where tea came from. Imagine! You can try to tell them that tea was enjoyed in China for thousands of years before any white fellow with a British accent sipped it in some manicured garden & they'll act as if you've called Jesus Christ a filthy cocksucker! It's true. But why deny this delicious beverage its true lineage? How does that denigrate it for the likes of us? Not at all, you're right! & yes, I'll have another cup!

No, tell even a relatively smart person that tea came to England through a marriage to a Portuguese princess & they'll get huffy & perhaps daydream about hitting us. Or try this: mention that the rise of tea in England parallels the rise of sugar consumption from the slave fields of the Caribbean - & note that the sweetest tea in the world is still drunk today in the American south - & they'll screw their faces up like they either having a stroke or a painful bowel movement. All this over tea! What an important libation!

Oh you know I would love to stay to have another cup, but I must be off. I don't mind this lackadaisical consumption of tea in a button-down setting, but I will let you know I prefer a more - shall we say - structured approach to my tea. So I am inviting you to my next tea party! I will be combining some Japanese & Chinese methods of preparation & service to some rituals I have been dreaming about lately, given to me in my sleep by FBI Agent Dale Cooper of television's Twin Peaks & by Stephen Strange, also known as Marvel Comics' sorcerer supreme, Dr. Strange. Please bring an appetite & protective headgear!

& thanks so much for the tea!

Preface To Tea: Is There Any More Sugar, Sugar?

All this talk about hot beverages has made me thirsty.

Here is a sentence that just popped into my head: "Emile Zola drinks the blood of a goose." It's important for you to understand that sentences like that just pop into my head with frightening regularity.

I have nothing personally against Emile Zola. Everything I know about doing laundry in the late 19th century I learned from him. But my head seems to want to spread malicious rumors about him in the present tense although he's very very dead.

What's worse, just now, I've been wanting my head to cause other ridiculous sentences to come into existence (with a pop!) but my head, as if it has performance anxiety, refuses to comply. What's up with that? Instead of sentences that are weird, here's the most recent sentence it has produced: "I'm sleepy." It followed that with "When I get home perhaps I should nap."

My head apparently will not perform on demand, so I must try to think of something else to get it to unwittingly do something that I need it to do if I every want you to believe that my brain creates odd sentences at random. So now I need to go back to my thirst, which will not & cannot be slaked by hot liquids.

What? You're as crazy as my head! They can put ice in tea? & they call it Iced Tea? & it's very common in the American south?

Well, fuck me.

Didn't you notice already?

Last week's stimulating show (har, har) about coffee is sitting on the burner waiting for you to have a cup over at selfhelpradio.net. Please to download.

Hey, & while you're listening, do notice that we're talking about something called a "membership drive." That's the name we give to our twice-yearly event when we ask for the support we need to survive. So while you're listening, scootch over to koop.org & help us out. Pretty please.

7 Shows To Go!

& nearly half of them are Membership Drive shows. So today you may not only tune in to hear at least ninety minutes worth of caffeinated talk & songs about coffee, but also you'll hear us ask nicely for money for the station's continued support. You can call during Self Help Radio today & make me feel loved, or you can visit KOOP's web site to donate online. Keeping independent radio independent - don't you wanna?

Yes, today's show is about coffee. Tune in! Only seven more chances to do that here in Austin! Live at 4:30 pm on the 91.7 frequency, or online at koop.org. Archived later at that web page I have.

Listen! Call! Give! Have a cuppa joe!

Be My Guest!

A nice fellow who happened to be female who also happened to be named Camille sat with me as we rescued a stranded hour of radio yesterday from 11am to noon. That show, in which I out my own mother as a necrophile, is available for listening to over at selfhelpradio.net. Do not tell my mother.

Also, as I am leaving the radio station soon, I am hoping you'll want to continue listening to my ridiculous show as a podcast. If that is the case, send me an email at shrpodcast at gmail dot com & I will put you on a list notifying you when new podcasts are uploaded. Doesn't that sound swell?

Whither Coffee?

According to facts that I "researched" online, Americans drink more 300 million cups of coffee a day - a third of the water consumption of Americans - basically one cup of coffee for every American, although of course YOU drink more. You stink of java, buddy.

Should we drink less coffee? Didn't I hear something about anti-oxidant levels in coffee? Or was that in an issue of Aquaman? Yes, it was. & no it wasn't. Stop reading & pay attention!

Some smarty-pants scientists with their data say coffee appears to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cirrhosis of the liver, & the gout. But these benefits seem to come from coffee's caffeine content, & you know what? Drinking caffeinated coffee affects the arterial walls, & if you drink too much you can suffer from something unpleasantly called hypomagnesaemia (it hurts in the pants), not to mention coronary heart disease.

Coronary heart disease? Hey! I said not to mention it!

Students everywhere claim it helps their memory. I'll need another cup to remember where I read that.

When I was a kid, I thought coffee was like hot chocolate, because my mother always drank it with lots of sugar & cream. ("You want some coffee with that cream & sugar?") I still associate the smell of sweet coffee, & the pale swirly brown in the cup, with fond feelings of my mother on cold mornings. But I associate the bitterness of coffee with unhappiness in my twenties, especially espresso, which I used to cure my meth addiction. Only to get addicted to espresso. Damn it!

I want to do a show about coffee because I know how much you like it. I can do a show about Aquaman later. Your wet suit isn't going anywhere!

Preface To Coffee: Decaffeinate Me, Bitch

Coffee grows on trees. It's true. Look it up. Coffee does not just grow in houses owned by people named Maxwell. That's a damnable lie!

Coffee is loved by many people, most of whom are not famous. People like Voltaire & Balzac loved coffee, & they were famous. Now, of course, they're dead. Not all coffee lover are dead, either. Now that I think about it, they were also French. But please don't get me wrong - I don't think all coffee lovers are dead famous French men. I think, for example, some unknown French women have loved coffee.

I lost my train of thought. Do you know what scares me most about coffee? The way it stains things. Like coffee cups. Or teeth. Staining things is scary to me. But not staining. Although maybe staining.

When is the last time I had coffee? Don't ask me that! My dirty little secret this week is that I'm not a coffee drinker. I get my caffeine from beets. You heard me! I eat beets for their caffeine! What? Beets have no caffeine? Foiled again!

I must go. I leave you with: death by caffeine!

Eyes On The Side Of My Head

My shortest blog entry ever:

My show on Friday was my SXSW show. It's available for downloading & listening to selfhelpradio.net.

Do it. Do it now.

8 Shows To Go!

In this space, as I plan for the last eight Self Help Radios I do on KOOP, I would like to respond to one of the so-called "good ideas" my so-called "fans" have been so-called "sending me" (uh, I guess they are really sending them to me, sorry) (I get a little too excited with the scare quotes).

In particular, the one person who suggested that to "celebrate" the countdown of shows, I cut off a finger or two for every day, until, on the last show, I am down to only one. Helpfully, they suggest it could be a mixture of fingers & toes. Or maybe an ear, eye or nostril (!) could be subtracted. They write that they don't want to "inconvenience" me.

It seems to me that digital (& other) mutilation is a piss-poor way to "celebrate" anything, unless it's to celebrate getting rid of that ugly motherfucking thumb that has been mocking you, mocking you, mocking you since you were a child. Therefore I utterly & completely reject your idea. I will simply count the shows down in this manner, go home, & cry into my hands.

But don't be dissuaded! You can send me your suggestions anytime!.

Speaking of sadness & woe, you guessed it, show number 8 is today, & it's my show about bands I like that are coming to South By South South next week. My taste is of course more on the radio than yours, so perhaps you'll have to tune in.

If it's on the radio, it'll be on 91.7 fm.
If it's on the computer live, it'll be at koop.org.
If it's no longer March 7, it'll be at selfhelpradio.net.

See you there!

Subtle Frenzy

Hello, it's Thursday. I have looked through the list of bands coming to town next week until my eyes have started to feel sad. I am amazed at three things: 1) that so many bands are coming to town next week; 2) that so many of the bands coming to town next week have really awful names; & 3) that so many bands are coming to town next week that aren't very good.

I know, taste is a subjective thing (except, you know, with things like poo - no one likes the taste of poo), but still, as someone who puts his taste on the line every week (since everything I play is chosen by me & by a robot I built in the fourth grade), I have to say, wow. I am glad I don't have to fill more than a couple of hours of programming with this lot. Ouch.

I am of course just being silly, except about the names. Here is a list of some of the worst band names you can imagine in the universe I promise (I have left out most of the metal, "world" & hiphop names, because they are required to be ridiculous &/or include bad puns):

The Airborne Toxic Event (look, we got our name from a newspaper we opened at random!)
American Bang (wait. hunh?)
An Albatross (is the article required? i bet they have gotten mad at bloggers who forgot the article!)
A Thousand Knives Of Fire (rip Gary Gygax!)
Beasts and Superbeasts (they have weird zoos in Canada)
Bedroom Walls (I guess it beats "Kitchen Cupboards" - or does it?)
Between the Buried and Me (wait. what?)
Bound Stems (aw, they live near a florist!)
Carbon/Silicon (choose damnit!)
Care Bears on Fire (it's just not funny)
Cassettes Won't Listen (it's just not weird enough)
The Chocolate Horse (sounds delicious!)
Coconut Coolouts (sounds delightful!)
Collections of Colonies of Bees (sounds dangerous!)
The Crash That Took Me (since they're from Dallas, I assume they're talking about something financial)
Does It Offend You, Yeah? (does it embarrass you? no?)
Drop Dead, Gorgeous (someone should never have given them that comma)
The Dykeenies (this seems slightly offensive. & dumb)
Earthless (shoud've gone with "pantsless")
Envy On The Coast (since "landlocked shame" was taken)
Everlovely Lightningheart + Everthus the Deadbeats (okay, they're avant-garde-ish bands, but if they can't be clever enough to think up a good name, how clever do you think their music will be?)
Ex Cocaine (Post Cocaine would have been a much better name.)

& that's just the A-Es! I'd like to continue but I have to go to a meeting.

I'll end on a positive note: My favorite band name for a metal band at SXSW? Blunt Force Trauma. I am proud to say they're local!

Whither SXSW 2008?

Hello friends. I am writing this blog with something just a little like sadness, as this is probably the last time I will get to write about Austin's yearly clusterfuck called "South By South West." I will most probably not be in this city next year so I won't get to play bands that are coming to Austin in order to edutain you about my faves. & surely that is a sadness.

It reminds me of a time when I was squatting in a freebooter's flat in the port city of Port Arthur. Those were lonesome days with only the sound of the television tuned to the Game Show Network to keep me warmish. Years later, after a chilling rain, I attended the same television's funeral at a second-hand appliance store in nearby Corpus Christi & I truly remember thinking, "Thomas Worf was right, you can't go squat again." So too it shall be after this week's review.

& you shall surely see me standing outside the lovely offices of Entercom afterwards with tears streaming down my cheeks saying, "Oh God what have I done!" Then I'll be mugged by two coffee delivery boys as I am every Friday. They keep finding where I hide my money! Truly they are both mean & crafty!

But, as John Leopard Dirtypants has written in his fable "Zach & Dionne": Fuck yeah, life goes on, long after the trill & spilling is gone. So too I long for once more to trill & spill about this musical festival which nearly no one attends, & then I shall let it go, like I let go the remote of that long-ago pirate's television, dropping it in the grave prepared for it, & never thinking about it again.

Until now, you know. I had to think about it to make a point. Get it?

Preface To SXSW2008: Getting Fat On Tourist Dollars Is Fun!

In Austin, we like the tourists. They smell funny & they look funny but they seem to like this place we live in & they bring us lots of money. Mmm, money.

However, money isn't everything, & certainly that is a lesson that South By South West teaches us. Fame is also important. Also, getting people to scramble about madly from place-to-place to catch a few admittedly unsatisfying minutes of one's favorite band when they are definitely not at their best because they've been scheduled to play after a sixteen piece jam band at a venue that was a used book store recently converted to a "space" for bands only after three interns at South By South West International were dispatched to the City Codes office to offer sexual favors for anyone who could expedite the process. Yes, besides money, there's fame & desperation. Mmm, desperation.

I confess I don't spend money on "wristbands" nor do I use my considerable media muscle (ahem) to force my way into venues. But I do drink a lot of an evening & weep into my hands while no one's looking. But I also do that at other times besides South By South Ugh, so that's not important. What is important is that the city thinks you're a moderately well-off (but distant) relative & is glad you're leaving on Sunday. It completely expects you to pay for everything while you're here & that's why it doesn't mind if you throw up all over the place (like you will).

This is true for the musicians, too. I mean, come on! We're a city that doesn't even appreciate the musicians we got! So feel free to despoil our children & drink our watered-down well drinks - you're going to be racking up some debt while you're here, believe you me.

Yes, tourists reinforce Austin's self-importance, & well that should. Listen - if you didn't come twice a year now (also for the ACL thing in the fall), this damn city might actually have to get a job!

If I Were Billy Preston...

This is an embarrassing thing to discuss in what amounts to a group setting because I don't spend a whole lot of time imagining what I would do if I could be someone else or even wanting to be someone else & let's be honest here most folks who spend a lot of time imagining what they'd do if they were someone else are not really imagining what they would do but rather imagining just being that other person & doing whatever that person did because the reason you'd want to be a specific person outside of yourself is not the ineffable qualities of that person somehow applied to your condition but instead you experiencing what you have decided are amazing moments in some much famous person's life & it being you rather than the person inspiring another person like you but which isn't you which is my way of saying that since I don't really do that I probably wouldn't want to be Billy Preston as I don't really have much of a yen to reproduce much of what he did in this life except perhaps appear in the motion picture Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band if only to hang out with underrated British comedian Frankie Howerd & to also fulfill a lifelong wish to beat the living shit out of Maurice Gibb.

This doesn't mean I don't like Billy Preston or don't like the song "Will It Go Round In Circles" (I fucking love that song). Just that I wouldn't want to be him, in the same way I wouldn't want to be pretty much any musician. You're the one who brought up Billy Preston. It could easily have been Patsy Cline or Nick Cave or Holger Czukay.

Now that that's out of the way, may I remind you that you experienced a "leap day" this year, on February 29, & you won't get to do that for four more years now, but you can return to ninety delicious minutes of that day as they were celebrated on Self Help Radio simply by visiting selfhelpradio.net. I don't know this for a fact but I have it on good authority that if enough of us experience that show over & over we may also add an extra day to March!

9 Shows To Go!

It's not fair it's not fair! The year gets an extra day but I don't get an extra show! Why me Lord why me?! I finally understand the blues!

All right, sport. Chin up. Back straight. Knees slightly bent. Don't be a mewler, be a man! You know you have to go. You know that you'll be leaving the city some call "Austin" soon enough, & you know it would be unfair to simply do your show until the day you leave. It'd be selfish! & real men are not selfish. Well, except in bed. But you are not in bed! You are leaving a fine community radio station with dignity. Do not embarrass us.

I'll try to be strong, I will. But I am so very lonesome & sad right now. Nine shows! That's as many stories as in JD Salinger's Nine Stories! That's as many lives as a cat has! That's as many nines as were naughty when we learned about naughty number nine! That's many holes as half the holes at a miniature golf course or even the number of holes at a really small strip-mall enclosed miniature golf course where once I had drunk an entire pint of Everclear in an orange slushie & I tried to steal a kiss from JF but she swing the little plastic club & hit my elbow & the nachos went everywhere! Nine is not a good number! I am very worried about the number nine!

No. I must be strong. Think about Batman. Batman would want to vanquish a set number of villains before he retired, or, since I'm not really stopping the making of the radio shows, I'm just leaving KOOP, let's assume Batman is moving from Gotham City to, say, Metropolis, just to fuck with Superman. Surely Batman would have a set number of baddies - say, nine - he'd like to make sure were all tucked away in Arkham Asylum before he split, right? & don't I share a lot of qualities with the Batman? We're both OCD!

Yea! As the clock ticks down, you can listen to the first of the last nine Self Help Radios today, on the air at the 91.7 fm frequency, live at 4:30pm, & on the computer net at koop.org. I'll archive it later if you're way too depressed to listen.

I'm a mewler!

PS: Didn't think I could name nine Batman foes? Ha! 9. Killer Croc; 8. Riddler; 7. Clayface; 6. Penguin; 5. Scarecrow; 4. Mister Freeze; 3. Two-Face; 2. R'as Al-Ghul; 1. Joker. Wanna know how I did? Maybe there's a list of Batman enemies online?

What's So Damned Funny?

Oh, nothing really. Yesterday I subbed KOOP's novelty/comedy show, which is called "Dr. Debra's Gone Mad!" & played some silly songs & stand-up, including music by the likes of the Dead Milkmen & Tiny Tim, & stand-up by Louis CK & Michael Ian Black. Plus! Extra! Songs about cats! & a version of a Paul McCartney song you can actually stand to listen to!

You can experience the whole show in the regular place: selfhelpradio.net.

Here are two anecdotes about the show yesterday which weren't broadcast (since they happened in the studio while I was playing music).

Anecdote the first:
The Entercom studio which the corporation has graciously let us use of course still belongs to them, & a tech fellow was around taking inventory, which he ominously said was "for when you guys are done." Eep! Anyway, he brought in what appeared to be his boss around the time I was playing the Tiny Tim song. The dude, who looked a lot like Mike Farrell & was carrying a coffee cup in the way Dave Foley's character always did on News Radio, said, "Is that Tiny Tim?" I said it was. He said, "Amazing! & it's not even his hit!" As he was leaving, he said to me, "I bet you're the only person in America playing Tiny Tim on the radio right now." For some reason, I just thought, "That's what KOOP's all about."

Anecdote the second:
The last song I played was the Mike Flowers Pops's version of "1999" & a very square middle-aged guest of the next show (a news & public affairs show called "A Neighborly Conversation") said, "Who's doing this horrible version of that Prince song?" When I told her I thought the cover was better than the original, she looked at me like I had told her that her kids were stinky. Which made me think, "Isn't it odd that this person who's on KOOP doesn't appear to listen to KOOP?"

Anecdote the synthesis:
I think I kinda liked the fact that the corporate executive was both more hip & had a greater sense of humor than the grassroots community activist.

Whither The Leap Day Show?

Because it's happening on February 29.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll take a moment to answer some of the other questions you've been asking me, either by email or in my dreams. Dead people who listen to Self Help Radio & who haunt me will NOT get their questions asked, as they are usually inane & generally a waste of everyone's time. Dead people ask the dumbest motherfucking questions.

I am NOT a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. I don't know how that rumor got started but I am pretty sure I was drunk at the time.

There are many reasons to leave an organization like KOOP, but among those reason, I am not leaving because I got KOOP pregnant. KOOP & I are close, but we are just friends. Sheesh. I know KOOP is kind of homely, but surely a radio station like that can do better than ME. Plus, how do you know KOOP is pregnant? Who told you?

Thank you for your cards & letters, but I am not sick with Lou Ferrigno's disease. There really isn't any such thing as Lou Ferrigno's disease. Who would name a disease after Lou Ferrigno? Wouldn't a disease like that just make you awesome?

I thank both Z & S (whose names do not begin with those initials) for their requests for upcoming themes. I like that you want me to do shows about things like "battered spouse syndrome," "kitty box odors" & "songs that rhyme the word 'serrated'," but I probably won't get to them any time soon. Also, I think you should perhaps seek mental help.

Thanks all for now. See you Friday. We'll be leaping.

Preface To The Leap Day Show: What Can We Do On Our Extra Day?

Oh goodie! Science in its infinite wisdom has given us a whole extra day this year! I've looked everywhere to see if there's a catch, but nope: it's free! They're giving it to us for free!

I haven't checked yet to see if this day is actually subtracted from the days that are normally alloted to us by the Fates, but I'm guessing it's not, since it's also tax-deductible. (I think.) Since they've decided to place the day on a Friday, & since no one has to work on any extra day added to a calendar (that's a rule), it's also like you get a three-day weekend!

I have to do my show, since it's a Friday & since my KOOP shows are dwindling, but except for that ninety-minute period, you should totally do whatever you want. I mean, wow! An extra day! Science in its infinite wisdom hasn't done anything that cool since eliminating days in the Dark Ages by switching from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. People in those times (except the Russians, who, as usual, got completely fucked over by the Tsar) were so damned grateful that two more weeks of suffering, disease, hopelessness & misery were taken off their lives they agreed not to fuck with the Catholic Church until around the end of the 17th Century. & you know what? Peasants living in squalor keep their promises!

Another thing I'm almost completely certain about is this: since it's an extra day, it'll exist outside the bounds of the normal workings of the space-time continuum. & you know what that means: Klingons! Fuck yeah! Not only that, but the laws of science won't apply, & if the laws of motherfucking science don't apply, neither will the paltry human-made laws of our civilization. You can do whatever you want - just remember it resets at 12:01 on Saturday morning. & nothing will turn into a pumpkin, so pay attention to what you're doing!

I officially say to you have a happy extra day! I hope you'll have fun & do something crazy - but I have a bad feeling that you, like me, will sleep in, order a pizza, listen to the radio, rent something you have already seen but have forgotten about (& you'll say "fuck it" & watch it again), & fall asleep with your hand clutched around a bottle of cheap booze.

Oh leap day! Why must science in its infinite wisdom mock us so?

Why Do You Say Nothing About My New Socks?

For weeks you have been carping & complaining & otherwise making me feel like a pauper or a homeless person by telling me how frayed & grubby my socks are. Now that I have gone out - at great expense to my self-esteem - & gotten a new pair, you have said NOTHING. You have not even noticed them! What's the point of being such a dick & making me feel so bad if you aren't even going to notice when I make the CHANGE that you want me to make?

At this point I should make sure you know that I now have more than one pair of socks. I will add that I don't have more than two COMPLETE pairs of socks, but since you've begun ignoring my socks, I may return to my admittedly lazy habit of wearing mismatched pairs. I would like to certainly be able to explain where exactily my socks' partners have ended up, but I really don't know. There was an entire episode of CSI: Pflugerville about this, although it won't air until after the people who wrote it are allowed to write again after scabbing during the writers' strike.

I'm sick of talking about socks now. I'm going to go listen to my radio show, which is called Self Help Radio. Last Friday's show, which was not about socks (sadly) but instead was about guessing (radly) is up over at the Self Help Radio website. So even though I was there, I feel like I missed it, & if you feel that way, too, you should go listen to it.

I warn you, though. I did that show in my old socks.

10 Shows To Go!

Ten things to expect from the last ten episodes of Self Help Radio on KOOP:

1) More nudity.
2) Security has increased, so there will be fewer folks wandering into the studio, staring intently at Gary, & then breaking into a rage & just hitting him, hitting him, hitting him.
3) For guests, we've added a new fruit to the fruit basket: kiwi!
4) Gary has recently begun dealing with his crippling halitosis problem, so it should be easier to listen to Self Help Radio close up.
5) That thing where there's some sort of theme, & then there's a lot of music played vaguely, often tenuously, based on the theme? Yeah, that's not going to change. Sorry.
6) An extra laugh will be added to each episode. If you can't find your extra laugh, please talk to your radio provider.
7) It's dissertation season, so (as usual) there are dozens of academic treatises written about Self Help Radio & the damage it does not only to individual psyches, but also to the fabric of the space-time continuum. For the first time, at least half of those dissertations will be written in Chinese!
8) Annoying child character introduced in last season to be written out of the show entirely.
9) Up to 43% more discomfort per half hour.
10) The role of Gary to be played in the last three episodes by Corey Flintoff.

You don't want to miss the final ten episodes on KOOP! Listen online or listen to it live! Today at 4:30pm Austin time!

Zippo Says

It's very weird that a lot of folks are surprised by my outside volunteer work, like my tremendous support for the International Crusade For Holy Relics. They note that I, for example, own three Shrouds Of Turin, enough pieces of the cross they crucified Jesus on to make a full set of three, seventeen nails for nailing up a savior, & a whole photo album of polaroids that Martha & Mary took the day of the event, but the important thing is I don't disrespect these holy relics by selling them on eBay. That's just tacky.

I also enjoy mentoring kids in the natural sciences, where I often help them with their science experiments. You can guess which have been influenced by me - Crystal Meth: Friend Or Foe is of course one of my upcoming themes.

Oh, & of course, I donate a lot of my time to being high school mascots at sporting events. Have a look at where I get most of my costumes. Awesome.

I like to read short stories online, too. & worry about the destruction of the planet.

Of course, I also spend a great deal of time just getting old, & one of things that happens when you get old is that people you love & admire also get old. & they sometimes die before you. & sometimes you wish you could have a radio show every damn day of the week so you could give them a going-away they really deserve. So I say goodbye to Jim Jones, whose guitar work illuminated some of the best so-called "post punk" (even when it was before punk) in the world, with Pere Ubu. I'll find a way to say goodbye, Jim. I promise.

Whither Guessing?

The two doctors met in the room, one a resident at the hospital, the other a specialist called in for this very case. The patient in the room was on the verge of death.

"Can we treat him?" the first doctor asked.

"I guess," the other said.

"You guess?!" the resident said, exasperated. "Aren't you a world renowned expert on communicable diseases?"

"I guess," the expert said.

"There you go, guessing again!" his companion yelled. "There can be no guessing when it comes to a patient's life! You want this patient to survive, don't you?"

"I guess," the expert repeated.

"What the hell?!" This doctor was clearly terribly angry. "You don't feel strongly enough about your own patient to want to fight for his life?! Have you not heard of the Hippocratic Oath?"

"I guess not," the expert said, staring at the patient & apparently not affected by his companion's temper.

"It doesn't sound like you've even been to college!" the doctor thundered. "You are a fraud, sir! A scoundrel! You are a quack & you should not be allowed to practice medicine in this hospital!"

The other doctor seemed unmoved, oblivious to the other doctor's clenched fists, beads of sweat on his brow, & heavy breathing. After a moment, the resident said, "You will let me talk to you in this way?"

The specialist said, "I guess."

The first doctor threw his hands in the air & stormed out of the room, swearing & waving his arms in a frantic way. After a moment, noticing he was alone, the expert pulled up a chair & sat next to the patient, who was looking miserable indeed.

"Ah, there you are, doctor," a man said, entering the room. He held a folder which he offered to the specialist. "Here's the test results," he said. "It was exactly what you thought it was, which is incredible, since we wouldn't normally have run those tests. I have to ask, though: how did you know that he had such a rare condition?"

"I guessed," the doctor said.

Preface To Guessing: I Guess I'm Doing A Show About Guessing

Famous quotes about guessing:

"A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, famously mysterious-acting

"The shrewd guess, the fertile hypothesis, the courageous leap to a tentative conclusion - these are the most valuable coin of the thinker at work. But in most schools guessing is heavily penalized & is associated somehow with laziness."
- Jerome S. Bruner, famously penalized for being lazy

"Who can ... guess how much industry & providence & affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?"
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, famously not good at sports

"I am sure,
Though you can guess what temperance should be,
You know not what it is."
- William Shakespeare, famously drunk

"When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been."
- Gerard Manley Hopkins, famously manly hewer/delver

"The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life in general so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it - this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience."
- Henry James, famously just guessing at shit

"I never guess. It is a shocking habit—destructive to the logical faculty."
- Sherlock Holmes, famously fictional ( & awesome!)

"Dancing is a wonderful training for girls, it’s the first way you learn to guess what a man is going to do before he does it."
- Christopher Morley, famously predictable

I guess that's enough. For today.

Off Whitening

I love the titles of spam messages. I don't read them, although I feel a little guilty about that. That's someone's livelihood I am disrespecting! Etc.

Here are some titles from today's treasure trove of unsolicited email:

-- Pull of Huge Jackpot
What does that mean? Are they trying to convince me that their online gambling establishment is exerting some kind of force drawing me to them? I just don't feel it.

-- Watch the lust in her eyes when you whip out your 9 inch monster
It sounds like I am about to unleash a devil puppy on a perversely motivated woman who's into bestiality. I know I am something of a prude, but good lord, why would it be attractive to describe your thingie as a "monster"? Aren't monsters supposed to be scary, or, like the Elephant Man, distorted or horrible examples of humans?

-- Small |nstrumment is not a problem.
Oh, wait. Actually, I think this is an email from my girlfriend trying to make me feel better after last night. Not spam at all. Never mind.

- Buy Must Have medications at Canada based pharmacy.
"Canada based"? & why must I have them? Do Canadian pharmacies sell ecstasy? No? Then I am fine. Canadians! Feh!

- Those locker room stares will be for the right reason...
Oh, back to this. Wouldn't the "wrong reason" depend upon one's sexual orientation? Is the right reason mentioned above envy? Really?

- You can listen to last week's Self Help Radio up now at selfhelpradio.net...
I hate these worst of all. God damn radio show people pimping their second-rate non-commercial garbage. Grrrr. & this show is about "butchers"! Why not do what The Retarded Bob Dylan is doing with his show & pick simple subjects like love, hair, rain, & interns? I can abide most spam but the spam I send to myself I just loathe.

I subbed the jazz show Non-Breaking Space yesterday & should also have that show up soonish. Then I'll spam myself again. Because if I don't, who will? Me. That's who.

11 Shows To Go!

Ah, the good eleven. It never gave me any trouble until after nine.

Before anything is signed or notarized in today's self-serving blog entry, can I ask you: will you ever forgive me for forgetting you on Valentine's Day? I didn't give you hearts or candy or syphillis or even a lousy blog entry. It's not that I don't love you, baby. It's just that I am forgetful. I'm like a child, you know, before they learn spatial recognition or some such - I just don't think you exist if I can't see you. Not all the time, of course. Just when you expect something from me.

And. Now. Eleven more shows on KOOP. What can you expect? I promise you the same quality of programming you have come to expect from the Self Help Radio family of programs. I mean, I don't really imagine it could get much worse, could it? If there is a jump in quality (as if), you may attribute it to my desire to make the last programs I do for you on KOOP the best programs in the universe. But you know as well as I do that'll be a fluke.

Hey! Speaking of flukes! If you want to hear me get all jazzy like I did back in December, you can hear me sitting on the show Non-Breaking Space on Sunday at 5pm. Listen in!

& also listen today at 4:30 pm Central Standard Tamale live on the 91.7 fm frequency & on the interwebs at koop.org. A show about butchers by an ardent vegetarian. What could possibly be better?

Whither Butchers?

It is not well-known how the themes get chosen for the Self Help Radio. Since the Self Help Radio is owned by the same mega-corporation which owns the Council on Foreign Relations Gift Shop, Illuminati-Masonry & Sons, & the Church Of Scientology (Reformed), I can't really tell you or I will have broken my non-disclosure agreement & some goons would come along & beat up my bicycle, but I can tell you that I got the order to - er, I mean, I conceived the idea of a show about butchers back in the carefree days of not long ago, when all the men were slightly surreptitious & all the women were harmonizing.

That is a long & confusing way of saying this: I had no idea that my show would coincide with the sad news of the death of the most famous butcher of my generation, Sam the Butcher from The Brady Bunch, whose occupation may have rattled his senses enough for him to be attracted to the disturbingly mannish maid Alice. The actor - who appeared all over the place on the television of my childhood - was named Allan Melvin & he died last month at the young age of 84.

I'm not sure if he alone would be enough to inspire a show. What did inspire the show? What moved me, a vegetarian for over twenty years, to devote ninety precious minutes to an occupation I find abhorrent? The answer may surprise you.

It was 1947, & I was a dashing young Lieutenant in His Majesty's Iraqi Occupation Army. You were the twinkie in your daddy's lunchbox. I had fallen asleep during the fifth siege of Basra that month & I had forgotten that Charlie was thick in the Bush. (Neil Bush, at that time.) Three or four members of the Greatest Generation were playing punkies off the side of the small wading pool &, with the DVD player not working, we used the discs to absent-mindedly chop tobacco & opium left outside by the Dutch Police who had visited the night before. Distracted, I almost met my end by friendly fire from an unfriendly woman who had neither asked nor told in That Man's Army. What saved me? Why did I not die?

A butcher was hacking away at some mystery meat in the shape of Dick Cheney when, due to the way Dick Cheney makes everyone's stomach churn, the butcher suddenly hurled, & his cleaver flew between me & the soldier, deflecting the bullet & making her (for whatever reason) believe that violence was not the answer. I think she decided that breakfast tacos were the answer. & I thank my lucky stars that, that day, I didn't die & I have a butcher to thank. Do you know when that happened? Or rather, when it will happen? That's right. February 15, 2143.

I celebrate that fateful day! Even if I loathe the practice! Now you know! Aren't you a nosy bastard!

Preface To Butchers: Flank Is A Funny Word

Actually, all the butcher-related words are pretty funny. "Meat." It even looks funny. How about "loin"? "Chop"? "Rashers" of "Bacon"? "Rack" of lamb? Just repeat after me: rump, round, brisket, poll, hock, ham, rump, belly & jowl. Har har har! Them's funny motherfucking words!

& everyone - except obese people - think the word "fat" is funny. Not phat, but funny.

Dude, you just ate a rump when you could've had a rack. Har har har!

I also totally love diagrams like this one - especially when they're in weird discotheque colors - which describe the names of the "parts" of the animal (in this case, the cow) that can be eaten. I guess meat-eaters will eat pretty much everything, so diagrams like this are for finicky western eyes only. Bon appetit!

Do you know if someone has done the same thing for humans? Any cannibals out there want to show us something similar? Damn! I wish I had the time to make one. Rats. I spent the day getting yelled at instead of being creative.

Why does a licensed vegetarian like myself want to do a show about butchers? Hey! Ask me tomorrow!

Love Is In The Erred

BOY what a dumbass I am. I conducted what I thought was a sweetly romantic version of KOOP's perennial favorite, the Lounge Show, this past Saturday, but due to user error (meaning ME), I screwed up the recording of it. What a maroon!

However, I have made a CD-length mix of a majority of the songs I played Saturday (no, I didn't recreate my oafish airbreaks) which is available as my Self Help Radio Extra for February. Go! Go young lovers! There is grooviness waiting for your untainted hearts!

But if you're bitter & wounded & frankly hate the whole fucking idea of Valentine's Day, you can listen to my Self Help Radio show about jealousy over at selfhelpradio.net. You can even listen to it without me. Do you think I care?

No, I'm too busy beating myself up about my stupidity.

12 Shows To Go!

What a bummer. Twelve more Self Help Radio shows on KOOP. How should I end my run in three months? I'm plum clean out of idears.

Surely you can tune in today at 4:30 as we start to nibble down the last dozen shows. Mmm, nibble. It's on the air in Austin town on the 91.7 frequency from 4:30 to 6pm, & on the online line at the same time at koop.org. You can listen all the KOOP shows that way, not just mine. Thanks to Thomas Alva Edison.

Speaking of Menlo Park, I'll be subbing the Lounge Show tomorrow morning, too. Self Help Radio will be about jealousy today, but the Lounge Show will be more romantic. It'll be about nibbling. That's not true. It'll be about romance. Because I may have only a broken heart, but I still believe in love. Or eating. Eating crumbly stuff. & love. Mmm, love.

Listen! Listen! Listen!

Laetrile For Fun & Profit

I found out but decided not to mention that I am "subbing" (which is a word we radio types use to describe what happens when a show's regular deejay asks an irregular deejay {c'est moi} to "substitute" deejay while the regular deejay is away) (look, I know you're not a moron, but I am going to add that "subbing" is short for "substituting," & not short for something like "submarine") (I tell you this in case you weren't paying much attention, & also because I just totally got this condescending email from someone I'm working with on a project & he obviously thinks I'm as smart as a half-opened bag of twizzlers & needs to spell out basic English grammar to me) (which isn't, I know, at all fair, since, again, I don't think you're a moron but think you're actually quite bright, if sometimes a little too self-involved to be continually quick on the uptake) (& you know me, I am passive aggressive & I keep this shit to myself - which is a good idea, because if this self-important douche knew what I really fucking thought about his going all special education on me, it would mean more trouble at work) (Jesus, did you really need to make such a big deal about this, because now this is all parenthetical asides to you & not at all information to the general reader of my blog, who is, you know, not nearly as sensitive as you are & is actually quite amused by me in ways you could never be because of the way we have always been competitive about being "clever" & "funny" & "one-upping" each other) (that wasn't intended to be a dig, & what's wrong, anyway, with the sort of friendly competition we have? have you been keeping track? do you imagine that one of us is winning? & if you think that, is the "winner" the one who has a radio show or the one who doesn't?) (oh did I hurt you poor little feelings? you always pull this on Thursdays, when I just want to convey some information on my little radio show blog, you want to make some big production & it's only a little annoying - what? are you just logging ou...








& you came back. what a baby! & me with no parentheses left. Well, let me just say: I am subbing the Lounge Show on Saturday morning. That's the news. That's all. Wanna go get a beer or something?

Whither Jealousy?

Here are what some of the finest minds living today all alone have to say about the subject of this year's Self Help Radio Valentine's Day show, which is "jealousy":

"Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love" - François de La Rochefoucauld. Actually, he's one of the finest minds living today who's been dead for hundreds of years.

"To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter." Francoise Sagan. What? He died in 2004? Hunh.

"Plain women are always jealous of their husbands. Beautiful women never are. They are always so occupied with being jealous of other women's husbands." Oscar Wilde. Also dead. Apparently none of the finest minds living today are alive anymore.

“Love sees sharply, hatred sees even more sharp, but Jealousy sees the sharpest for it is love and hate at the same time.” I don't really know who said this, but whoever the person is, I'm sure he or she is still alive, therefore one of the finest minds living today.

“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.” Erica Jong. Who is still fucking alive, ha!

“A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.” Robert A. Heinlein. Famous dead pervert & sci-fi writer. Who I think was actually quite jealous of Arthur C Clarke's success. Heinlein, dude! You just called yourself incompetent & needy!

“Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.” Fulton J. Sheen. He's a dead Catholic dude, so was never even a finest mind, but it's a weird quote from a priest. So I like it.

As you can see, the topic is very appropriate to Valentine's Day, when we buy things for people we love or people we want to love or people we're supposed to love because we bought a marriage certificate & also made a "vow" before "God." As we look at the gifts - candies, flowers, hot oil, fruit, gift certificates, noodles, candleabras, hastily-scrawled poems - surely we feel jealousy for those who are lucky enough not to be in a relationship. & jealousy for the Hallmark corporation & the National Association of Florists, who make a killing that day.

Jealousy! It makes the day go round! Or something like that.

Preface To Jealousy: You Listen To OTHER Radio Shows?

I can't believe you. I thought we had something. Something real, between us, just us. I thought you were my listener & I was your deejay. I just thought... Now I guess you've proven me wrong. Now I guess I was just... Just...

Don't you turn this around on me! Of course I made radio shows before we met! I was on the radio, how could I not be making other radio shows? But all the listeners before you - they might have said they were listening - I might even have believed them - might have talked to them on the phone, taken a request once in a while - but it was never serious. They didn't listen every week. They were fickle, flip, inconsistent. They hurt me! You know when we met I was damaged!

But you - you told me you really listened. You said - I remember your exact words - you said, "I listen every week!" Do you remember the first time you tuned in? I knew you were listening. I was nervous, I tripped over my words more than I usually do. & then the phone rang & you called - & you won tickets to something! You weren't even expecting it! It's like fate wanted you to be my listener & me to be your deejay.

I wish I knew where it all went wrong. You can't tell me you're able to appreciate my show if you're listening to other radio shows. I bet you're even listening to online radio shows. I knew it! You're downloading podcasts!?! What sort of listener are you, anyway? Is there a loyal bone in your ear? How can you even tell the shows apart? See, that's where you protest too much! You're not a dedicated listener, you're a dilettante! I can't believe I once dedicated a show to you!

What are the other shows you listen to? You have to tell me! How can I know what I'm up against? How can I know what stole your attention away from me? Why won't you tell me? Of course it matters! God, it turns out you've kept secrets from me this entire time & you're still keeping secrets? Tell me now! Tell me everything! I can handle it!

I can't handle it. Just go. Just go. But. Can you listen Friday? It's a show about jealousy. Please? Please?

How The Mighty Have Been Grown!

As a child, I shunned exclamation points - found them too ostentatious, too obvious, too emotive, ultimately too phony. But not anymore! I think the exclamation point, once in its infancy, has finally grown up! Yes, it's the puberty of the exclamation point & be careful not to get any on you!

How do punctuations age? I hear you ask, & when you ask, you ask perhaps the middle-agest of the punctuations, which is the question mark. The question mark? The question mark.

By the way, many think the oldest of the world's punctuation is the period. The period. The period? No, it isn't! & it isn't our friend the comma, the comma, whose rhythm has echoed ours - the comma is in fact the only one of the punctuations that breathes as we do - or seems to.

No, the oldest of the punctuations is the apostrophe. The apostrophe's been around long because not only have humans been needing to ram words together as long as they've been needing to use words - 'tis no argument, don't insult me, you can't know, I won't have this, y'all - but they've also always been covetous & needed desperately to tell others what belongs to them. So the apostrophe's role is older than the stopping of a declaration.

As for the youngest of them all - those deformed freaks, the colon, the semicolon - well, no one believes they'll ever grow up. Leave them in their cribs.

So let's celebrate the terrible teens of the exclamation point! Let's be ridiculous & gay! For soon enough, the world will be quiet, & excitement will wane, & there will be no more shouts & hurrahs, & we will be energetic no more... But not today! Fuck you, future! I got me an exclamation point!

Hey! Here's something exciting! Last week's show about beatboxing is available now for your listening pleasure! You know you want to! It's really loud! Here's where it is! selfhelpradio.net! See you there!

13 Shows To Go!

Ach! Thirteen shows on KOOP radio left! That means it's roughly three months. I am sad. But I know what can cheer me up! Beatboxing!

One of the great things about Self Help Radio today is that NOT ONLY will you get to hear the great old & new beatboxers (DOug E Fresh to Rahzel), & NOT ONLY will you hear some songs that cleverly incorporate beatboxing, but AS AN ADDED BONUS AT NO COST TO YOU you'll get to hear my visit with MC Beat Daddy, where he teaches me the basics of beatboxing AND THAT'S NOT ALL I'll also be giving away beatboxing CD collections. Wow! Hey! Super! Freaky! Mommy!

So while it's sad for me to wind down my time on KOOP, it's glad for me to be able to have as much fun as I am planning to have for the next three months. Don't miss it! Today at 4:30 pm Texas time, live on the 91.7 frequency, & on the web at koop.org!

Eh Speak Up Sonny

Were I the more dynamic of the Self Help Radio sisters, I'd be announcing something new every day on this blog. I already try to follow something like a formula (not a baby formula) which not only helps me think of dumb stuff to write here, but also helps me organize my brain & remind me what day it is. Do you know the formula? Or would you rather play a game where you have to name television theme songs?

The formula, then:

MONDAY: Remind everyone that my show from Friday is available to be downloaded on the Self Help Radio website.
TUESDAY: Write something ridiculous as a "preface" to my next post "explaining" my theme.
WEDNESDAY: "Explain" my theme of the week.
FRIDAY: Countdown the shows left until I leave KOOP.

THURSDAY has no real purpose. I can maybe mention something like adding a new mix to the Self Help Radio Extra page, or link to something, but in general, this is Thursday: me saying not much.

Why can't I be the more dynamic of the Self Help Radio sisters? All the boys like her better, too. & if she did a radio show - well, you'd like it more. & Thursday would be "how to please your man in bed" day. I bet she has more then 52 ways to please her man. I should say "her men." She's a slut!

Instead, all I can say is I met MC Beat Daddy from Plano, Texas, & he taught me to beatbox. Results on the show tomorrow. Also I ate bad hummus last night. Oh, & I got three Enrico Caruso CDs on a whim. It's so fucking Thursday in here.

Whither Beatboxing?

Beatboxing! How ridiculous is that?

Not so ridiculous, my friend. There's a webpage out there which has been, it says, "representing & promoting the worldwide beatbox community since 1998." Beatboxers make records & people who make neat noises with their mouths star in "Police Academy" movies, if they're still being made & WHY AREN'T THEY STILL BEING MADE? Shouldn't someone be monitoring the whereabouts of Michael Winslow? Christ! Do I have to do everything myself?

I know, beatboxing is at best a fringe element of the hiphop community & at worst an annoying novelty, but my fascination with it resurfaced at some point last year - maybe I heard some beatboxing on a cut, or I was simply transported back to a time of childlike wonder at things like a fellow making simultaneous sounds with his mouth. & by the way, I am totally not being sexist here - I have no come across any female beatboxers. There are of course jazz women (like Ella Fitzgerald) who can scat, & scat is an obvious precursor to beatboxing, but I'm not doing a show about scat. I have only ninety minutes! I can't go back that far!

In any event, I decided someone should be paying attention to beatboxing. So I began to delve into the beatboxing world. Someone had to do it, & I have discovered that, because you're so damn lazy, I have to do everything myself.

I am not necessarily going to have only songs with prominent beatboxing, but also some beatboxing-related musics. Initially, I thought I might have to cut corners & play songs like Big Audio Dynamite's "C'mon Every Beatbox," to fill up space (& I love that song), but I have more than enough beatboxing to fill two hours if I had to. You know it.

Beatboxing! How awesome is that?!

Preface To Beatboxing: Hip Hop Dreams

I used to be more quick tongued than I currently am - I am older, obviously - much of my brain has been slowed by time & probably whiskey (mmm, whiskey) - but I remember when I was a teenager, as my little brother became an aficionado of the new "rap" scene (as he called it), I could make fun of MCs with dumb lyrics & even tried basic beatboxing. It was easy enough for me to "rap" stupid for enough time that my friend Russ told me I was a closet MC. That became my fake hiphop moniker: Closet MC.

I couldn't do it now. Tongue-twister lyrics that I sing to myself in the shower are hopelessly garbled. I find myself singing certain songs more slowly so I can wrap my teeth around them. I am a decrepit old bastard.

My little brother actually wanted to be an MC, though. To me, at the time, especially as I was starting to get into postpunk like Joy Division & the Smiths, hiphop seemed alien & dumb. All that bragging, all the overt sexuality, it was so unseemly, especially when Morrissey was being so humbly self-deprecating & the most songs I liked were about begging for a kiss you could never get, not dancing, sweating & having sex. What a naif I was!

I teased my brother about his ambitions, which is the nice way of saying I gave him a lot of shit. It didn't matter - we weren't very close by that point, & didn't want to be. He was out of high school & his posse was a bunch of neighborhood kids barely out of ninth grade. I once found a lyric sheet he had written - boy I wish I could remember his rap alias! - & it was boilerplate self-aggrandizement. I do wish he had recorded something. Maybe he did. But I never heard it.

I did record stuff, although it's mostly lost now, in a "band" which was my friend Russell on guitar (he'd add other instruments alone, later) & whomever we could shanghai into hanging out with us. All the lyrics I yelped were made up on the spot, usually to crack up Russell. He would sometimes suggest titles, & we'd go from there. One suggestion of his was a mocking bluesy tune called "Battering Ram" in which I, of course still a virgin, sang about my carnal prowess. If I remember the chorus right, it went something like:

I'm a battering ram,
I'm a battering ram,
I turn girls into spam,
Cause I'm a battering ram
I'm a battering ram,
I'm a battering ram,
I wonder who the hell I think I am

My favorite part was when, at the end, Russell interjected "His bedroom is an obstacle course," & I sang,

Watch it jump through the hoops
Do loop-de-loops
Battering, battering ram

In addition to a very insulting cover of "Sharp Dressed Man" & a shabby cover of "I Will Follow" (which I somehow made as creepy as possible by adding, "I'll follow you to your house - to your grandmother's house - I'll sneak in the bathroom"), we had songs with lovely titles like "Vandal With Me," "Officer Burrell Has Some Documents For You To Sign" & "Teenage Zombie."

None of this really has anything to do with hiphop of course. But what if I *had* pursued my hiphop dreams? Where were my friends who could beatbox? Alas, not in white Garland Texas in the mid-80s!

The Arsonist Is Caught!

In case you haven't heard, a former KOOP volunteer & programmer has been caught & confessed to starting the fire. I must admit, I am surprised it was that particular person, although his name was tossed around as a suspect.

The penalty for destroying what was the work of dozens of dedicated volunteers - him among them! - may be as little as two years in prison. I suppose I am admitting I am a bad person, but I wish he'd get the maximum - twenty years. He knew what he was doing when he set fire to KOOP - he knew he was spitting in the face of the sweat & toil of people with whom he was friends & colleagues. He knew he was destroying work that *none of them* got paid for. It seems like that should be taken into account when they sentence him.

I also hope he is not a little angry that his work was for naught - KOOP is still here, & a stronger station without him.

Enough of this! There are three things you can do to enjoy Gary's KOOP! All are available as we speak at selfhelpradio.net.

1) Listen to my subbing of Justin's excellent show The House Call. I hope I did it justice.

2) Listen to my subbing of Ear Candy, featuring a special guest appearance by a spaz named Leah.

3) Listen to last week's Self Help Radio, which was all about my anger about the person who started the fire... & look how much that show accomplished!

That's four hours of Gary. Please consult with your physician before listening to more than one show at a time.

14 Shows To Go!

That's right - KOOP is back on the air! & with it, the Self Help Radio countdown continues. Only fourteen more shows! Gasp! I'd better tidy up a bit!

The "fourteen shows" thing is a bit disingenuous, because there may be only fourteen Self Help Radios on KOOP left, but Self Help Radio is like a rash that cannot be treated with anything resembling powders or pharmaceuticals. You can't get rid of it. So it shall continue, either as a podcast or as some radio show somewhere else. May God have mercy on our souls.

As well, there's no law that says I can't sit in on other folks' shows when they are otherwise unavailable. So, today, you'll hear my indie rock it up on Justin's excellent The House Call, & I always hope I do him justice. Justin justice. Then, tomorrow, I'll indie pop it up on Ear Candy. So what should have been just ninety minutes of Gary on the radio has suddenly, inexplicably, unconscionably turned into four long hours. Think I'll crack? Think someone will need an EMT? Then tune the fuck in, yo.

Remember to maintain the rage at asshole arsonists by tuning in today either live on the 91.7 fm frequency or live online at koop.org. KOOP has been through another trial by fire & emerged more powerful. & we do it for our community. That includes you!

KOOP comes back, baby!

That's right, tomorrow - January 25, 2007 - KOOP will return to the air. Oh yes. Just in time for you to hear the last Self Help Radios you'll hear on KOOP. I'm sure that's why they chose Friday!

Here's a nice article about how much KOOP loves KVRX & vice versa. Those kids did a damned good job. I'm so proud of them! Now if they'd just learn to clean up after themselves... Kids today I swear.

So you'll get to hear Self Help Radio - & maybe Gary on other places on the station over the weekend. I'll let you know.

Meanwhile, if you'd prefer to listen to music NOW rather than reading a dumbass blog or waiting for tomorrow, you can visit the Self Help Radio Extra page because my January Extra Mix is up. I do this for you. Please don't make me feel weird about it.

Tomorrow - KOOP - the Return!

Whither Anger?

It's a strange, crippling condition, is anger, & I have probably been angry a lot of my life, borne of the helplessness of basic existence in a complex world.. A friend once told me she saw me as a lone soldier fighting a fight against pretty much everything, & although the image is interesting, surely she must have known that I'd get shot by friendly fire right away - even if I were the only person in the company.

I've been angry the last few weeks because of the stupid fucking person - the selfish or hateful or deluded or fucked-up or spiteful or whatever the hell he/she/they was/were - who burned down my dear community radio station. I don't believe in nonsense like karma & I don't believe in a hell, so I naturally want them to get a taste of justice while we can all be around to enjoy it. I think that, once they're caught, the Austin Fire Department & the Police should leave the person or persons responsible in a room with every KOOP volunteer allowed a few seconds with them. I would emerge with bruised knuckles.

Fuckers! Of course I'm angry! So the show this week will be soul-searching - songs about anger, with me talking about my anger. It'll be one of those occasions where Self Help Radio gets to be Gary Therapy. Maybe it'll help you, too.

Preface To The Angry Show: Is There A Place For Emotion In Music?

Music is, of course, first & foremost a cerebral pursuit, as we have always acknowledged, from the first writings of Professor Elvis Presley to the most recent - &, some say, the most difficult, as he invented a whole new scholastic language to dealing with music criticism - works of Dr. Shawn Carter. But recently, as the fourth deconstruction of popular music resulted in the demise of three record labels & the mass suicide of the Harvard Music School faculty, some people have begun to ask: but what if we made music with our hearts rather than our minds?

It is terribly easy to dismiss this as some kind of science fiction nonsense, but a small group of younger students has begun suggesting that the way a singer sings & perhaps the sound of the music might actually echo & create emotions in the listener. Appearing in smaller journals & also in unofficial publications called "fanzines," these "punks" (as they call themselves) have turned off their minds & started dancing (!) & singing along (!!) to the music. Some have also asked that the music be performed live (!!!) by groups of people who stand in front of them.

It hasn't taken too long for this strange, nearly heretical thinking to find its way to the establishment. Some of the old guard - the songwriters whose music could never be accused of have emotion in it - like Sir Paul McCartney & Brian Wilson - have waved the stories away as fabrication. Others, however, seem intrigued -& have in fact found themselves in places called "clubs" where there are actual "bands" playing music on stages. A few of those have managed to stay through the entire "show" without needing medical assistance.

It may be too early to tell if this is in fact some strange derangement caused by the intense intellectual experience of music - there are those who rue the day music was allowed to be shared with everyone, when it was freed from the academies, churches & halls of power - or if this is truly some revolution in the way human beings interact with & enjoy music. Only time will tell.

Be My Guest

It's a nasty day in Austin - not cold, but rainy & icky. I hope this isn't a premonition about my fortieth year! I can make one prediction - there will be good news soon about KOOP's return to the airwaves. I will tell you as soon as I know something.

Meanwhile, I am sitting in my slightly cold house & daydreaming today that it's now 1997 & I have decided that I want YOU to sign my guestbook. It's a guestbook! Do you remember when everyone had a guestbook! It's over a decade later & now I have one! Oh boy!

Go leave a message about Self Help Radio. Or about something else. Here's the link. I expect your eloquence will knock me out.

Podcast Greens!

Whatever kept me from uploading to my server last night is fixed now, so if you have been wondering what my favorite music from 1972 was, there's over two hours of it at selfhelpradio.net. Download & live in the past.

I titled my last post "Podcast Blues" but "Podcast Greens" doesn't seem the other side of that phrase. I suggests a green light to start going, but I demand a color that is the official opposite of the blues. Even if we have to make one up. If we do make a color up, I don't think we should insist it start with a q, x or z. People will just think we're referring to a new pharmaceutical if we do that.

Please enjoy well-meaning podcast. Please ignore shabby production values. Please wish me happy birthday. Thank you!

Podcast Blues

Hey! I finished the next podcast - but for some reason, I can't log on to the server that hosts them.

This morning I dropped my iPod in the rain & destroyed its screen. Now I have finished a two hour podcast (!) & can't share it.

Happy birthday to me!

I'll keep you updated when/if I get it up & running.

Sigh.

How Naughty Do You Dream I Am?

I am nowhere near naughty as this. The Dutch, I swear.

But I am thinking about this podcast thing in comparison with the radio show in real time thing. I am not at all constrained by time - just by the amount of material. &, it turns out, I like a lot of music that was made in 1972. I have thirty (THIRTY) songs I want to play, which, if I include my regular chatter, would be more than two hours of show. What to do? I certainly want to have it ready for downloading tomorrow. In case you're chomping at the bit, too. Which I know you're not. But it's nice of you to say.

What I'll do is probably have a longer podcast. Why not? Can YOU stop me? You can't even take the time to write me & tell me you love me, & also apologize for that time in ninth grade. You know what I'm talking about. In Drama club. When we were rehearsing The Crucible. I so knew it was you. Then as now, I'm going to do what I want to do. Even if we never speak again.

I am still finding my voice, so perhaps I will make this podcast nearly voiceless. There's just SO MUCH MUSIC. I haven't decided. If I call you at 4am, I'll be wanting your opinion. Don't hang up! I'm not drunk! I'm just stressed!

Brr, it's cold. All right. Bundle up. I'm podcasting tomorrow!

Whither 1972?

I was born in 1968. In January. That's FORTY YEARS AGO. Incredible. Anyway, a few years back, on this radio show I do, I thought, I'll celebrate my birthday by playing music that I like which happened to come out the year I was born. The next year, I moved up to the next year (1969), & so on. I've been doing this for four years now. I'm up to 1972. It's like some kind of regular feature. Unfortunately, it happens once a year, so, er, no one's really paying attention. Except for me.

I am still (meaning at this time) sorting through records from that year - there are a lot - here's a list of all the damn albums released in 1972 - I don't think that the list is very complete. But it gives you an idea of what I have to sift through.

Ah but! There's a lot of shit I don't like & won't play. That doesn't mean it's not any good, just that I don't like it all that much (which means I don't think it's any good - the critics - & you - can & will disagree). Also, it's important to note that the majority of the time I spent in 1972, I was four years old, & didn't really have a very good record collection at that point (I had most of the Beatles records, but didn't everyone by the age of four?) so these are records I hold in high esteem NOW, not that I held in high esteem then. Not necessarily.

It's a pain in the ass to organize, but I think I'll divide them into the following categories, &, since it'll be a podcast, I will allow myself to go long. Nyah.

1) Funnies.
2) Glam.
3) Krautrock.
4) Funkies.
5) Folky.
6) Rockin.

I wish I could include "jazzy," because there are some jazz records that came out that year that I dug, but I will draw the line then.

As for KOOP recovery news - I think there'll be very good news for you soon. Just be patient.

Preface To 1972: They Had Elections Then?

I am diligently working on a podcast-flavored Self Help Radio for your screaming pleasure this Friday. It may take until Saturday, though, as I am turning 40 (forty!) on Sunday. I hear you slow down with age. I can't imagine getting any slower, actually. It's a wonder I move at all.

Here's a British article called 40 Things About Being Forty. I don't really agree with most of it, primarily because I have avoided the ultimate aging process, reproduction, but the penultimate two seem to me really strange & wise:

38 It's hardly ever quiet enough.
39 It can be too quiet.

Isn't that true when you're twenty, though? Right now, as I type this, I am sitting alone in a room that has a lot of computers in it. I had headphones on but took them off to answer the phone, & haven't got back to putting them on again (again, I move slowly) (there's no noise from the headphones because I pause music when I answer the phone - I don't want to miss anything). The hissy rumble of computers may seem like quiet, but it's a sad form of quiet, like the white noise of a busy highway in the distance. Real quiet, like you can experience in the country, is stunning. It's like gasping for air after being underwater for a little too long.

It looks like turning forty is a big enough deal to make it into a doman name. How important is it to me? Well, I'm doing a radio show about it. Sort of

Or at least a podcast.

A New Use For Frogs!

Or maybe not. I do not have any frogs. I can only use them now for looking at & the occasional dissections.

I have no news about KOOP. I know some folks are coming here to look for new news about KOOP. For those of you who came here because you googled "a new use for frogs," KOOP is the radio station where I deejay. Someone (or someones) whose usefulness to the world they have chosen to demonstrate as "neglible" set a fire there on the first weekend of the year. There is an investigation underway & there is more information about that over at the KOOP home page. We're working to return to the air. I hope that the person or persons who attempted to destroy one of the last few democratic & utterly free voices in the world (& not just Austin) finds themselves some place where they are needing help &, instead of encountering a good soul, the sort of soul that I volunteer with at KOOP, they come across someone quite like them, who laughs & laughs at their pain.

I know there's very little justice in the world, but when someone has wounded something like KOOP - oh, & it's only a wound - this is one scrappy radio station, with lots of scars - & god I love that crazy little station, scars & all - when someone has hurt something I care for as much as KOOP, I like to indulge in little revenge fantasies. May they come true with a vengeance.

There are some recordings of old shows (including some Self Help Radio shows) streaming from koop.org, but in case you didn't hear, I did do a show all by my lonesome Friday, as a podcast, it's about teeth, & you can listen to it at selfhelpradio.net.

I shall continue podcasting while the station gets back on its feet. Stay tuned I say! Stay tuned!