I love reading reviews, & I especially love reading reviews that disagree with my opinion. I think they round out my views, because often someone hates a part of a movie, a book, an album, that I totally didn't notice or didn't really care about. In some cases, really good criticism causes you to think about your own criticism, in the same way that open-minded religious folk will compare & contrast different belief systems when confronted with someone else's faith.
& I am not averse to labels - sometimes they're the best way to get you in the door of the small room of understanding. So I'll describe music as "indie pop" or "post-punk" & it's fine as far as it is - although you can sometimes get into trouble with folks who hate that. Describing Pere Ubu as post-punk, for example, might make someone who knows the timeline correctly note that, actually, Pere Ubu began before punk. But in that case, it's not necessarily a chronological description, it's about a sound... But never mind.
Yet I am just as liable as everyone else to be put off by specific labels - labels which are like warning signs about thoughts or ideas I don't agree with. A book I was really interested in reading, which apparently has been getting decent reviews, was described in a negative review as being funded by a "neoconservative think tank." It turns out this is true, the author got a grant from a neocon group. I immediately began to lose interest. Then I started to think about what this made me think about the author - did I believe this person was so weak-willed & greedy that he'd produce whatever the right-wing group wanted him to produce? Did I imagine it always happens this way, money trumping free thought?
I certainly believe every human being has his or her price, & that it's always embarrassingly low. But my point in bringing up criticism is this: if I can read different opinions & not be swayed away from my own, why couldn't I read something from someone who had no affiliation with a deluded money pit but who took the cash offered him? Even if he were corruptible, I'd at least have some information to consider. (& this person is a scholar, not a right-wing blowhard who's better known for being on television or on the corporate dole.)
It may be because he is in fact a scholar with some well-received books under his belt. I personally can't stand what can best be described as the Jerry Springer school of heated debate - it's just too sad to hear someone talk about what they think about the government or god or society without really having any information to back up their idiotic assertions.
I experienced a great bad example of this on the recent 30 Days episode about same sex parenting. A retardedly religious woman opposed the gayness of the two obviously good parent gay men, & neither side bothered to ask her just why homosexuality offended her so. They took it as read that her religion opposed man-on-man action (& though she was a Mormon, she could easily point to the Bible's anti-gay stance) & she just said she opposed it. It was a waste of a very long hour.
A simple chat with anyone who's actually studied the Bible would've made her look like a fool for blindly parroting homophobe talking points. & the same goes for the gay men - their "live & let live" attitude is relativistic quicksand. A slight change of the wind in our nation & their kids are taken away & they're locked up in camps to "cure" their gayness. They may be buoyed by gay liberation's astonishing successes in the last decade, but they haven't really paid attention to how tenuous freedom is. You think they'd know better.
Ah well. What's that? You think I am writing all this to avoid making my show for tomorrow, which is about avoidance? Nonsense! You're only saying that because you don't agree with me. Say! Who funds you?
Friday, August 01, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Link Cookies, a pram
Say! This is a Thursday. Do you have anything Thursdayish to tell me? All you ever do is stare at those schematics. It gives you a vaguely vacant look, like a supermodel or a heroin addict taking a driving test. What he gave you wasn't so much criticism as a meager expression of disappointment - & could you blame him? Every time someone tries to get through your defenses, you circle your wagons. "I'm a rough draft," you say. As if that means anything outside of the newspaper trade!
We were reminiscing about growth & hitch-hiking when, out of the blue, you-know-who started asking for volunteers. I was eating a banana at my steel guitar lesson & no one seemed to be thinking of me. That's when I thought of you - all the time & energy put into the wrong receptacle. Like someone using Google to spell-check. I confess I never learned barre chords for this very reason.
I expect you're wondering why I dally, why I make conversation like this if there are hard feelings. Time to time I do think there aren't so much hard feelings as flaccid feelings. Feelings that can't get hard unless there's chemical help. You should encourage these feelings to stiffen up. It might make you feel a little more Thursdayish. Or able to conceive Thursday thoughts. It would be worth your time.
Some sample Thursday thoughts:
- Christ in a bucket called fish, will this day ever end?
- Of all the Thursdays in the world, why did this Thursday have to be the last day I am allowed to work here?
- This morning... This morning is not good enough.
- Did the Vikings leave more than their teeth marks on the coast of Scotland? Why or why not?
- It's only a fire on the porch. Go back to bed.
- Did you leave the OH MY GOD HAVE A LOOK AT THIS DISTURBING SLOW MOVING POLICE CAR!
I look forward to next Thursday. Although not for the same reasons you think I do. Do I?
We were reminiscing about growth & hitch-hiking when, out of the blue, you-know-who started asking for volunteers. I was eating a banana at my steel guitar lesson & no one seemed to be thinking of me. That's when I thought of you - all the time & energy put into the wrong receptacle. Like someone using Google to spell-check. I confess I never learned barre chords for this very reason.
I expect you're wondering why I dally, why I make conversation like this if there are hard feelings. Time to time I do think there aren't so much hard feelings as flaccid feelings. Feelings that can't get hard unless there's chemical help. You should encourage these feelings to stiffen up. It might make you feel a little more Thursdayish. Or able to conceive Thursday thoughts. It would be worth your time.
Some sample Thursday thoughts:
- Christ in a bucket called fish, will this day ever end?
- Of all the Thursdays in the world, why did this Thursday have to be the last day I am allowed to work here?
- This morning... This morning is not good enough.
- Did the Vikings leave more than their teeth marks on the coast of Scotland? Why or why not?
- It's only a fire on the porch. Go back to bed.
- Did you leave the OH MY GOD HAVE A LOOK AT THIS DISTURBING SLOW MOVING POLICE CAR!
I look forward to next Thursday. Although not for the same reasons you think I do. Do I?
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Whither Avoidance?
Was Bartleby a shirker? An essay by Tommy Titmouse, age five.
In re-reading Melville's seminal short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener," with my little brother Timmy, I am bemused at the total inability of the titular character to understand even the minutest basics of the capitalist system. Indeed Timmy, who has only begun reading Marx's Capital, grasped the inherent dynamic between personal freedom versus market forces. Bartleby, by proclaiming with terse vapidity his opposition to any ideas of his own, comes across as a layabout, a wastrel, a slacker, & a shirker.
Can we, in these days of nation-transcendent corporate interests & transformative free trade, afford to allow the labor force to so blithely renege on what is assuredly a social contract? More information would be required, of course, & it would be helpful if perhaps Melville had provided ancillary documents, like Bartleby's resume, & perhaps commentary from previous employers. Yet if we are to believe in the maturation of the employed through incentives that only the market can provide, we must empathize with his supervisor's boundless optimism in utilizing someone who surely came with more caveats than praise. When business fails, it can rarely be said to be from the sanguinity of the owners of the means of production!
How to prevent such unhappy outcomes in the labor force? Surely a system of rewards coupled with healthy slogans, perhaps from the works of Adam Smith, would suffice for the average earner. But Bartleby was worse than a Luddite; a wooden shoe thrown into a cogwheel would be more fundamentally fixable than a stubborn dolt refusing to do his work! & unemployment is frankly too generous for the likes of Bartleby; when a hireling causes profit loss through non-cooperation, the punishment ought to be more severe.
Perhaps a critic of my polemic might say, "Didn't Bartleby suffer as you would have him do? Did he not die?" Ah, but he did so first by breaking the law (a right surely reserved only by the most international of consortiums) & then requiring a social network (ie, the police & the criminal justice system) to shelter him as he destroyed himself! As the late Charlton Heston might have said, a firing squad (in an event publicized & attended by his fellow scriveners) would have been quicker, cheaper, &, I daresay, more just.
Indeed, Bartleby was a shirker, & his sorry tale should be as a parable for all who wish the wheels of industry to run smooth & true. I rest my case.
Adds little Timmy Titmore, age three & a half: But Bartleby was cool!
Damn it Timmy!
In re-reading Melville's seminal short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener," with my little brother Timmy, I am bemused at the total inability of the titular character to understand even the minutest basics of the capitalist system. Indeed Timmy, who has only begun reading Marx's Capital, grasped the inherent dynamic between personal freedom versus market forces. Bartleby, by proclaiming with terse vapidity his opposition to any ideas of his own, comes across as a layabout, a wastrel, a slacker, & a shirker.
Can we, in these days of nation-transcendent corporate interests & transformative free trade, afford to allow the labor force to so blithely renege on what is assuredly a social contract? More information would be required, of course, & it would be helpful if perhaps Melville had provided ancillary documents, like Bartleby's resume, & perhaps commentary from previous employers. Yet if we are to believe in the maturation of the employed through incentives that only the market can provide, we must empathize with his supervisor's boundless optimism in utilizing someone who surely came with more caveats than praise. When business fails, it can rarely be said to be from the sanguinity of the owners of the means of production!
How to prevent such unhappy outcomes in the labor force? Surely a system of rewards coupled with healthy slogans, perhaps from the works of Adam Smith, would suffice for the average earner. But Bartleby was worse than a Luddite; a wooden shoe thrown into a cogwheel would be more fundamentally fixable than a stubborn dolt refusing to do his work! & unemployment is frankly too generous for the likes of Bartleby; when a hireling causes profit loss through non-cooperation, the punishment ought to be more severe.
Perhaps a critic of my polemic might say, "Didn't Bartleby suffer as you would have him do? Did he not die?" Ah, but he did so first by breaking the law (a right surely reserved only by the most international of consortiums) & then requiring a social network (ie, the police & the criminal justice system) to shelter him as he destroyed himself! As the late Charlton Heston might have said, a firing squad (in an event publicized & attended by his fellow scriveners) would have been quicker, cheaper, &, I daresay, more just.
Indeed, Bartleby was a shirker, & his sorry tale should be as a parable for all who wish the wheels of industry to run smooth & true. I rest my case.
Adds little Timmy Titmore, age three & a half: But Bartleby was cool!
Damn it Timmy!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Preface To The Avoidance Show: How Can I Get Out Of Writing In My Blog Today?
A note from Gary's mother:
To those nice people who read the increasingly ridiculous Self Help Radio blog:
Although he no longer lives at home, my son Gary is not well today. He woke up with a bad taste in his mouth & a bad outlook on life. He refused to eat his sauerkraut & sausages for breakfast & looked a little green under his gills. Even though it's been at least two decades since he's had to attend high school, he missed his bus & refused to hitchhike as I always tell him to do. Instead, he went back to his room & crawled under his covers, curled into a fetal position, & refused to tell me he loved me like he should if he really loved his mother.
Therefore he's not able to write in his blog today. He's not getting any dinner either.
Yours,
Gary's Mother
(It'll be harder to avoid writing in this tomorrow...)
To those nice people who read the increasingly ridiculous Self Help Radio blog:
Although he no longer lives at home, my son Gary is not well today. He woke up with a bad taste in his mouth & a bad outlook on life. He refused to eat his sauerkraut & sausages for breakfast & looked a little green under his gills. Even though it's been at least two decades since he's had to attend high school, he missed his bus & refused to hitchhike as I always tell him to do. Instead, he went back to his room & crawled under his covers, curled into a fetal position, & refused to tell me he loved me like he should if he really loved his mother.
Therefore he's not able to write in his blog today. He's not getting any dinner either.
Yours,
Gary's Mother
(It'll be harder to avoid writing in this tomorrow...)
Monday, July 28, 2008
That's Not My Cat!
For the sake of enjoyment, just refer to Friday's Self Help Radio Blog entry (which is below this one), & replace every reference from a "hat" to a "cat." Hilarity will most certainly ensue.
Here's an example rib-ticking entry:
I described my cat & even included a photograph in the ad in which I mentioned I had lost my hat. This looks nothing like the photograph. Granted, the photograph was in black & white, on newsprint, but, even so, here - look! - this is the picture of the cat, that is the helmet-like headgear object you are attempting to return to me
Do you see? A cat is nothing like a hat, which creates absurd incongruities which can only make one laugh!
Please note, while this works with most things that rhyme with hat (cat, rat, mat, gnat, vat, bat, DAT player), it generally doesn't work with things that rhyme with cat which are not nouns (like fat, unless you mean the animal products some gross people cook with) or even past tenses of verbs (like spat, unless you mean the thing that horse riders put on their boots). The absurdity is diminished by the incongruity. It is funnier to think of someone mistaking one thing for another thing instead of someone mistaking one thing for a quality. No one has that kind of sense of humor.
Well, you've certainly taken all the fun out of this exercise. If I were you, I'd just forget all about this & mosey over to selfhelpradio.net & listen to this past week's show, which is about whales. No more of this hat-cat-chat-drat stuff. You obviously don't have as refined a sense of humor as I had heretofore believed. Hrrummph!
Here's an example rib-ticking entry:
I described my cat & even included a photograph in the ad in which I mentioned I had lost my hat. This looks nothing like the photograph. Granted, the photograph was in black & white, on newsprint, but, even so, here - look! - this is the picture of the cat, that is the helmet-like headgear object you are attempting to return to me
Do you see? A cat is nothing like a hat, which creates absurd incongruities which can only make one laugh!
Please note, while this works with most things that rhyme with hat (cat, rat, mat, gnat, vat, bat, DAT player), it generally doesn't work with things that rhyme with cat which are not nouns (like fat, unless you mean the animal products some gross people cook with) or even past tenses of verbs (like spat, unless you mean the thing that horse riders put on their boots). The absurdity is diminished by the incongruity. It is funnier to think of someone mistaking one thing for another thing instead of someone mistaking one thing for a quality. No one has that kind of sense of humor.
Well, you've certainly taken all the fun out of this exercise. If I were you, I'd just forget all about this & mosey over to selfhelpradio.net & listen to this past week's show, which is about whales. No more of this hat-cat-chat-drat stuff. You obviously don't have as refined a sense of humor as I had heretofore believed. Hrrummph!
Friday, July 25, 2008
That's Not My Hat!
Sir, I must object. This hat you claim to be returning to me - it's not my hat!
First of all, my hat has no ornamentation of any kind. It's just an average trilby. It doesn't have flashing lights or whirling colors or beeping noises like this hat here. It has not electronical components nor does it run on solar power, as I am assuming this hat does, with those panels on the sides. It does not have a video screen on its elongated visor, as it has no elongated visor. This, sir, is not my hat.
Second of all, & I do not mean any disrespect when I point this out, but this really shouldn't be categorized as a hat. It's more helmet-like. Not many hats cover almost the entire head, & have a chin-strap beside. Nor do have as many accesories as this device you have hear. Nor are most hats made out of polymers - usually they're cloth, or cloth & plastic. What you have there, people call those helmets. Not hats.
Third of all, I described my hat & even included a photograph in the ad in which I mentioned I had lost my hat. This looks nothing like the photograph. Granted, the photograph was in black & white, on newsprint, but, even so, here - look! - this is the picture of the hat, that is the helmet-like headgear object you are attempting to return to me. Do you see, sir, as I hold them side-by-side, that they don't really look like one another? They are in fact very different - they have virtually no commonalities.
Fourth of all, I do appreciate that you apparently came all the way from the wilds of Bastrop to return this hat to me - although how it could have gotten there I don't know, as I lost it at a restaurant in Clarksville - I confess I don't know why you imagined there would be a reward for the return of a hat. I didn't say I would give a reward, & if I did, it wouldn't be ten thousand dollars. That's all seventeen kinds of ridiculous!
& finally, sir. In spite of all you've done, even if it was for material gain, it truly was a kind gesture to try to return a stranger's hat, & although I feel I've gone out of my way to avoid making you angry, it certainly was uncalled for for you to urinate on my lawn. On my lawn chairs. On my pet puppy Wiggles. On my pet rocks. You are a bounder sir! A bounder & a cad! Which are rare traits in a good (or shall I say mediocre) samaritan.
Ah! Now that that's taken care of, I must sit, daydream about my hat, & wait till tomorrow for this week's exciting Self Help Radio episode. I hope it'll be about hats!
Ah! It's about whales! What fun! Whales love hats!
First of all, my hat has no ornamentation of any kind. It's just an average trilby. It doesn't have flashing lights or whirling colors or beeping noises like this hat here. It has not electronical components nor does it run on solar power, as I am assuming this hat does, with those panels on the sides. It does not have a video screen on its elongated visor, as it has no elongated visor. This, sir, is not my hat.
Second of all, & I do not mean any disrespect when I point this out, but this really shouldn't be categorized as a hat. It's more helmet-like. Not many hats cover almost the entire head, & have a chin-strap beside. Nor do have as many accesories as this device you have hear. Nor are most hats made out of polymers - usually they're cloth, or cloth & plastic. What you have there, people call those helmets. Not hats.
Third of all, I described my hat & even included a photograph in the ad in which I mentioned I had lost my hat. This looks nothing like the photograph. Granted, the photograph was in black & white, on newsprint, but, even so, here - look! - this is the picture of the hat, that is the helmet-like headgear object you are attempting to return to me. Do you see, sir, as I hold them side-by-side, that they don't really look like one another? They are in fact very different - they have virtually no commonalities.
Fourth of all, I do appreciate that you apparently came all the way from the wilds of Bastrop to return this hat to me - although how it could have gotten there I don't know, as I lost it at a restaurant in Clarksville - I confess I don't know why you imagined there would be a reward for the return of a hat. I didn't say I would give a reward, & if I did, it wouldn't be ten thousand dollars. That's all seventeen kinds of ridiculous!
& finally, sir. In spite of all you've done, even if it was for material gain, it truly was a kind gesture to try to return a stranger's hat, & although I feel I've gone out of my way to avoid making you angry, it certainly was uncalled for for you to urinate on my lawn. On my lawn chairs. On my pet puppy Wiggles. On my pet rocks. You are a bounder sir! A bounder & a cad! Which are rare traits in a good (or shall I say mediocre) samaritan.
Ah! Now that that's taken care of, I must sit, daydream about my hat, & wait till tomorrow for this week's exciting Self Help Radio episode. I hope it'll be about hats!
Ah! It's about whales! What fun! Whales love hats!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Christian Bailed
Bad pun! Went to see "The Dark Knight" at the "IMax" so couldn't write in the "Blog."
Forgive me. There'll be more nonsense tomorrow. You have my pants on it. & what is a man without his pants?
Erp.
Forgive me. There'll be more nonsense tomorrow. You have my pants on it. & what is a man without his pants?
Erp.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Whither Whales?
Yes, you don't have to ask, I've never seen a whale in real life. Maybe from an airplane - I have vague memories of seeing a school of whales in the Atlantic when I was a boy on my way to Germany the first time - who knows if that really happened - but I've never even been to Sea World or some other water park. Or have I?
There's a truism in the history of life on this planet that human beings, once they came around in sufficient numbers, killed off, over time, the largest mammals. There used to be mammoths & saber-toothed tigers, of course, but also giant sloths & horses & mice for all the hell I know. Once dinosaurs were abducted by the evil space felchers from the Andromeda galaxy, mammals were all like, "This is our world now. Talk to the paw." & they got as big as they could get. & from the looks of it (ie, the fossil record) they did it quickly.
But it took us humans nearly no time (geologically speaking) to dispatch them. The last great giant mammals left are elephants, rhinos, hippos, & of course the whales. (I don't count morbidly obese Americans.) & yeah, we're killing pretty much all those off. There's no reason to point blame: we're all involved. We're blubber fuckers & we know it.
The scariest thing I've heard is that, because of all the damn boats (tankers, liners, submarines, battleships, etc) we have in the water, it's too noisy for the whales to communicate over long distances any more. Apparently, before the advent of the steam engine, a whale could start a chat in the South Pacific that could be heard in the North Atlantic. & it didn't use up arbitrary "minutes." But that's all done.
I'm totally bumming myself out. But wait, there's more! Did you know there was "an enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas... floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco & Hawaii" ? It's true!. I mean, really. What must the whales think of us? Besides being scared shitless, I mean?
The whales will be fine once we run out of oil & kill ourselves off. I just hope it happens to us before it happens to them.
There's a truism in the history of life on this planet that human beings, once they came around in sufficient numbers, killed off, over time, the largest mammals. There used to be mammoths & saber-toothed tigers, of course, but also giant sloths & horses & mice for all the hell I know. Once dinosaurs were abducted by the evil space felchers from the Andromeda galaxy, mammals were all like, "This is our world now. Talk to the paw." & they got as big as they could get. & from the looks of it (ie, the fossil record) they did it quickly.
But it took us humans nearly no time (geologically speaking) to dispatch them. The last great giant mammals left are elephants, rhinos, hippos, & of course the whales. (I don't count morbidly obese Americans.) & yeah, we're killing pretty much all those off. There's no reason to point blame: we're all involved. We're blubber fuckers & we know it.
The scariest thing I've heard is that, because of all the damn boats (tankers, liners, submarines, battleships, etc) we have in the water, it's too noisy for the whales to communicate over long distances any more. Apparently, before the advent of the steam engine, a whale could start a chat in the South Pacific that could be heard in the North Atlantic. & it didn't use up arbitrary "minutes." But that's all done.
I'm totally bumming myself out. But wait, there's more! Did you know there was "an enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas... floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco & Hawaii" ? It's true!. I mean, really. What must the whales think of us? Besides being scared shitless, I mean?
The whales will be fine once we run out of oil & kill ourselves off. I just hope it happens to us before it happens to them.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Preface To Whales: 'Whale' As A Verb
We all know that "whaling" is the hunting of whales, much in the same way that monkeying around is the hunting of round monkeys. But why then does the verb "to whale" include this definition (from the Oxford English La-di-da):
1. trans. To beat, flog, thrash.
Examples:1801 G. HANGER Life II. 162 Whaleing a gentleman is but a vulgar revenge. 1884 ‘MARK TWAIN’ Huck. Finn iii, He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me.
In recent times we seem to have added the preposition "on," I guess to clarify, especially when referring to heavy metal guitar solos - "he was really whaling on that guitar, dude!"
But where did that meaning come from? Were there perverted seamen (that sounds perverted!) who would thrash the whale once its giant carcass was pulled onto the ship? Were they whale-fuckers? Does blubber feel really good when... But I've gone too far again.
To return: I am not an etymologist (or even an epidemiologist) but I do enjoy trying to figure out where words come from. Some are easy, some are not. Says the OED:
Of obscure origin. Commonly regarded as a spelling of WALE v.1, but there are difficulties of form, chronology, and meaning. (I'll say!) Perhaps orig. = to thrash with a whalebone whip
Aha! The old "whalebone whip" gambit! That may have worked in Indiana Jones & The Belly Of The Whale (or it might have been Star Wars 2: Guts On Fire) but it won't work here! Whalebone whips my blowhole.
Unfortunately, there's nothing else I can find online (other than the obligatory "origin obscure") so I'll have to make something up. That's right. I'm allowed to do that. Because I have a blog. On the internet.
Here's my explanation:
Back in the day when sailors used to hit each other, & things, with great force, they needed a word for it. "Hit" was boring & "thrash" is what the captain & other officers did to them. They had yet to invent the word "thwack," & "strike" sounded too union-y. So one day, two sailors who shall remain immortally nameless were beating the crap out of each other - some might say "whaling" on each other - when a big whale, the biggest they'd ever seen, came out of the ocean & then went back in with a big ker-splat! of its tail on the water.
"Dude," said sailor one. "Did you see that whale whaling on the water with its tail?"
"Dude!" said sailor two, "you just invented a verb!"
Sailor one was all like, "I'm so Shakespeare," & sailor two started whaling on him.
They passed the word around to their rowdy crew, & soon it was commonplace among the sea dogs of the world. In time, as they came ashore, so did the lucky word. Not so lucky, though, for our inventive sailors, though. A few weeks later, when the captain found they had spotted a whale & not called out, they were hanged.
There! You have your etymology. Now go & spread it amongst the people of this world!
1. trans. To beat, flog, thrash.
Examples:1801 G. HANGER Life II. 162 Whaleing a gentleman is but a vulgar revenge. 1884 ‘MARK TWAIN’ Huck. Finn iii, He used to always whale me when he was sober and could get his hands on me.
In recent times we seem to have added the preposition "on," I guess to clarify, especially when referring to heavy metal guitar solos - "he was really whaling on that guitar, dude!"
But where did that meaning come from? Were there perverted seamen (that sounds perverted!) who would thrash the whale once its giant carcass was pulled onto the ship? Were they whale-fuckers? Does blubber feel really good when... But I've gone too far again.
To return: I am not an etymologist (or even an epidemiologist) but I do enjoy trying to figure out where words come from. Some are easy, some are not. Says the OED:
Of obscure origin. Commonly regarded as a spelling of WALE v.1, but there are difficulties of form, chronology, and meaning. (I'll say!) Perhaps orig. = to thrash with a whalebone whip
Aha! The old "whalebone whip" gambit! That may have worked in Indiana Jones & The Belly Of The Whale (or it might have been Star Wars 2: Guts On Fire) but it won't work here! Whalebone whips my blowhole.
Unfortunately, there's nothing else I can find online (other than the obligatory "origin obscure") so I'll have to make something up. That's right. I'm allowed to do that. Because I have a blog. On the internet.
Here's my explanation:
Back in the day when sailors used to hit each other, & things, with great force, they needed a word for it. "Hit" was boring & "thrash" is what the captain & other officers did to them. They had yet to invent the word "thwack," & "strike" sounded too union-y. So one day, two sailors who shall remain immortally nameless were beating the crap out of each other - some might say "whaling" on each other - when a big whale, the biggest they'd ever seen, came out of the ocean & then went back in with a big ker-splat! of its tail on the water.
"Dude," said sailor one. "Did you see that whale whaling on the water with its tail?"
"Dude!" said sailor two, "you just invented a verb!"
Sailor one was all like, "I'm so Shakespeare," & sailor two started whaling on him.
They passed the word around to their rowdy crew, & soon it was commonplace among the sea dogs of the world. In time, as they came ashore, so did the lucky word. Not so lucky, though, for our inventive sailors, though. A few weeks later, when the captain found they had spotted a whale & not called out, they were hanged.
There! You have your etymology. Now go & spread it amongst the people of this world!
Monday, July 21, 2008
Watering One's Lawn - Source Of Hope Or Regret?
It's mid July so it's time once again to check on our Drought Monitor. Oh hooray! Austin is teetering between "Extreme Drought" & "Exceptional Drought" & I spent a couple of hours watering my poor dry lawn last night. What an asshole I am! Furthermore, what a bunch of assholes live in my neighborhood! Because everyone was watering their god damned lawns last night. Didn't they know we're experiencing an Extreme Drought?
There's a lot of staring at ground & sitting on porch when one's lawn is dying or dead. The history of our lawn is a sad one. When we bought the house three years ago, we had one more tree than we currently do. Not because we chopped one down, oh no no no. The tree died. It could have died of old age (can you imagine that trees dry of old age?) or we could have not watered it enough in the Quite Awful Drought of two years ago, but however it went, it did die. & the back yard its stump still resides in is pretty much dead too. So I watered. How could I know the Drought we're having is almost Exceptional?
Here's something you never hear from people living in apartments or with their parents or in places that have no lawns: "If we install a sprinkler system, it'll increase our property value." & what will our property be worth in a world with little or no water? People will be ripping our sprinkler system out to drink the drops in the rusty pipes. Then they're break into our house to drink the water in our toilets. Property value will be for shit.
Yeah, I think about this stuff. Mainly in the day or so after I successfully finish another Self Help Radio. Did you know that this blog relates somehow to a radio show? It does! & you can hear this last week's show - it was about taxis, & not about watering the lawn - over at the Self Help Radio web site. It's easy, it's fun, & it doesn't affect the Overachieving Drought either way. Well, maybe in some ways. Don't water the lawn while you listen to it!
There's a lot of staring at ground & sitting on porch when one's lawn is dying or dead. The history of our lawn is a sad one. When we bought the house three years ago, we had one more tree than we currently do. Not because we chopped one down, oh no no no. The tree died. It could have died of old age (can you imagine that trees dry of old age?) or we could have not watered it enough in the Quite Awful Drought of two years ago, but however it went, it did die. & the back yard its stump still resides in is pretty much dead too. So I watered. How could I know the Drought we're having is almost Exceptional?
Here's something you never hear from people living in apartments or with their parents or in places that have no lawns: "If we install a sprinkler system, it'll increase our property value." & what will our property be worth in a world with little or no water? People will be ripping our sprinkler system out to drink the drops in the rusty pipes. Then they're break into our house to drink the water in our toilets. Property value will be for shit.
Yeah, I think about this stuff. Mainly in the day or so after I successfully finish another Self Help Radio. Did you know that this blog relates somehow to a radio show? It does! & you can hear this last week's show - it was about taxis, & not about watering the lawn - over at the Self Help Radio web site. It's easy, it's fun, & it doesn't affect the Overachieving Drought either way. Well, maybe in some ways. Don't water the lawn while you listen to it!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Gott In Himmel! Der Weekend Kommt!
From the mailbag:
My dearest Flossie,
The kaleidoscope arrived by train today and the Major and myself installed it in the pantry, whereupon (as expected) the neighborhood children came for a scamper. This was a most thoughtful gift and the Major in particular enjoys it when the children horse around, monkeyshine and otherwise jape. He says hello.
You write that your pastoral estate is currently on fire. This is certainly nothing to be ashamed of as half of the countryside is being burned to ferret out communists, socialists, union leaders, traitors, and other dissidents. A cold compress might be the ticket for these warm summer nights. Let me know if you need some extra rags, as we found another dead hobo on the porch this Monday past and we are flush with scraps of cloth at the moment.
Our plans for the late summer, like yours, have been changed by the government-mandated burnings, and so we probably will not visit Malmo to watch the heretics be whipped and thrown onto the fjords. This is a shame because you know Minnie enjoys a little cruelty now and again. It takes her mind off of her crippling syphilis. No matter, we shall find work to do on the manor. The groundsmen suggest rabbit-strangling, but I prefer duck-drowning myself, if only to pass the time.
Do let me know if you want to sit out the fire here. We're only required to burn the attic and the moat this summer, although we may get ambitious and burn the peasants' quarters if we're feeling frisky. The gratitude in their eyes makes the incredible pittance we spend on them so worth it.
Be well. Love from us!
Joe
Thanks for the nice message, Phil. Yes, Self Help Radio is preparing a podcast this week & what a remarkable one it will be. The subject is taxis & the entire show will be recorded in a taxi. Or while I am watching the hit television show "Taxi." It depends on which is cheaper. Renting the show - under five bucks. An hour & a half in a cab - whoa! Well, we'll see. Maybe I can steal a cab. Or maybe I can just call Judd Hirsch. It's not like he's working.
Find out what happens - & listen to some great tunes about cabs - this weekend, in the afternoon on Saturday, exclusively at selfhelpradio.net. Get it while you can - or I may keep the meter running.
Heh. Meter running. That's a hoot.
My dearest Flossie,
The kaleidoscope arrived by train today and the Major and myself installed it in the pantry, whereupon (as expected) the neighborhood children came for a scamper. This was a most thoughtful gift and the Major in particular enjoys it when the children horse around, monkeyshine and otherwise jape. He says hello.
You write that your pastoral estate is currently on fire. This is certainly nothing to be ashamed of as half of the countryside is being burned to ferret out communists, socialists, union leaders, traitors, and other dissidents. A cold compress might be the ticket for these warm summer nights. Let me know if you need some extra rags, as we found another dead hobo on the porch this Monday past and we are flush with scraps of cloth at the moment.
Our plans for the late summer, like yours, have been changed by the government-mandated burnings, and so we probably will not visit Malmo to watch the heretics be whipped and thrown onto the fjords. This is a shame because you know Minnie enjoys a little cruelty now and again. It takes her mind off of her crippling syphilis. No matter, we shall find work to do on the manor. The groundsmen suggest rabbit-strangling, but I prefer duck-drowning myself, if only to pass the time.
Do let me know if you want to sit out the fire here. We're only required to burn the attic and the moat this summer, although we may get ambitious and burn the peasants' quarters if we're feeling frisky. The gratitude in their eyes makes the incredible pittance we spend on them so worth it.
Be well. Love from us!
Joe
Thanks for the nice message, Phil. Yes, Self Help Radio is preparing a podcast this week & what a remarkable one it will be. The subject is taxis & the entire show will be recorded in a taxi. Or while I am watching the hit television show "Taxi." It depends on which is cheaper. Renting the show - under five bucks. An hour & a half in a cab - whoa! Well, we'll see. Maybe I can steal a cab. Or maybe I can just call Judd Hirsch. It's not like he's working.
Find out what happens - & listen to some great tunes about cabs - this weekend, in the afternoon on Saturday, exclusively at selfhelpradio.net. Get it while you can - or I may keep the meter running.
Heh. Meter running. That's a hoot.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Animal Plantagenet
Everyone, I know, has a favorite aristocrat - king, queen, prince, princess, lord a-leapin' or lady dancin'. There are so damn many of them it's a wonder that, like fans of boring pop stars, a majority of you go for the same three or four nobles. Too many of you like Ethelred The Unready, if only because you can never get your shit together. Too many of you like modern kings & queens, & I am especially contemptuous of you sycophants who spend too much time worshipping at the moldy altar of the Dutch Queen Beatrix. What, do you think she will share her stash with you? Dude, I'd stick with the hookah pipe of Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz. That crazy bastard knows how to party like it's 1499! (In the year of the Hijra, of course.)
As I was saying, people show little imagination in what I like to call "aristophilia." (I just double-checked to see if I coined the word. Of course I didn't. But that article suggests that it's mainly a love affair with the rich. I mean it exclusively for those with royal blood, & also true obsessives fantasize about having sex with them, too. Even if they're dead. A good aristophile is a good necrophile. Am I right?) With so many inbred blue bloods to choose from - & you don't have to stick with modern ones (though the modern ones are particularly stupid & therefore particularly hilarious). Crack a history book. Watch one of those history channels. Watch every other British movie ever made. You'll find there's royalty aplenty for you to mock, dream about fornicating with, adding to your own lame family crest, & more.
Here's my favorite (of the moment) (I mean, who can have just one favorite regal dumbass?) (Not me!): His name is Fulk I of Anjou. Yeah, where the pears come from. He didn't do much, he wasn't all that important, & like most humans that have ever existed he never once enjoyed the extreme luxury of indoor plumbing, but his name was Fulk. FULK! I know a guy who just had a kid & I pleaded with him, please please please name the kid Fulk!
Fulk loved his name so much he gave it to his kid. His kid, while apparently noted as a poet & an artist, decided not to carry on with the name (which means the selfish shit deprived the French of the possibility of having a King Fulk!) & named his kid Geoffrey Greymantle. As utterly dorky as that name is (I will name my next D&D character just that), I have to give props to Goofball Greymantle because he named one of his sons - Fulk III! Fulk yeah!
That Fulker only had a daughter, but there was later a Fulk IV (his grandson who married like five times!) & a Fulk V (number four's son, whose wife left him to marry the King of France, but who also got to be King of Jerusalem - oh yeah, the Holy Land got a King Fulk!), not to mention a bunch of other slightly noble & non-noble Fulks. But I'm old school. I mean, I like that Fulk III was a "...plunderer, murderer, robber, & swearer of false oaths, a truly terrifying character of fiendish cruelty... filled with unbridled passion, a temper directed to extremes. Whenever he had the slightest difference with a neighbor he rushed upon his lands, ravaging, pillaging, raping, & killing; nothing could stop him, least of all the commandments of God..." - that's awesome! & I like that Fulk IV fought with his brother & twice put him in jail - my childhood would have been sweet if my brothers had been incarcerated - I think I prefer the original Fulk to them all. Otherwise where would they be? They'd be fulked, that's what.
See what fun having favorite counts & dukes & earls & pukes can be? & you're still slightly sad over Princess Di. Shame on you!
As I was saying, people show little imagination in what I like to call "aristophilia." (I just double-checked to see if I coined the word. Of course I didn't. But that article suggests that it's mainly a love affair with the rich. I mean it exclusively for those with royal blood, & also true obsessives fantasize about having sex with them, too. Even if they're dead. A good aristophile is a good necrophile. Am I right?) With so many inbred blue bloods to choose from - & you don't have to stick with modern ones (though the modern ones are particularly stupid & therefore particularly hilarious). Crack a history book. Watch one of those history channels. Watch every other British movie ever made. You'll find there's royalty aplenty for you to mock, dream about fornicating with, adding to your own lame family crest, & more.
Here's my favorite (of the moment) (I mean, who can have just one favorite regal dumbass?) (Not me!): His name is Fulk I of Anjou. Yeah, where the pears come from. He didn't do much, he wasn't all that important, & like most humans that have ever existed he never once enjoyed the extreme luxury of indoor plumbing, but his name was Fulk. FULK! I know a guy who just had a kid & I pleaded with him, please please please name the kid Fulk!
Fulk loved his name so much he gave it to his kid. His kid, while apparently noted as a poet & an artist, decided not to carry on with the name (which means the selfish shit deprived the French of the possibility of having a King Fulk!) & named his kid Geoffrey Greymantle. As utterly dorky as that name is (I will name my next D&D character just that), I have to give props to Goofball Greymantle because he named one of his sons - Fulk III! Fulk yeah!
That Fulker only had a daughter, but there was later a Fulk IV (his grandson who married like five times!) & a Fulk V (number four's son, whose wife left him to marry the King of France, but who also got to be King of Jerusalem - oh yeah, the Holy Land got a King Fulk!), not to mention a bunch of other slightly noble & non-noble Fulks. But I'm old school. I mean, I like that Fulk III was a "...plunderer, murderer, robber, & swearer of false oaths, a truly terrifying character of fiendish cruelty... filled with unbridled passion, a temper directed to extremes. Whenever he had the slightest difference with a neighbor he rushed upon his lands, ravaging, pillaging, raping, & killing; nothing could stop him, least of all the commandments of God..." - that's awesome! & I like that Fulk IV fought with his brother & twice put him in jail - my childhood would have been sweet if my brothers had been incarcerated - I think I prefer the original Fulk to them all. Otherwise where would they be? They'd be fulked, that's what.
See what fun having favorite counts & dukes & earls & pukes can be? & you're still slightly sad over Princess Di. Shame on you!
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Whither Taxis?
People tell me I used to be a friendlier person. Now, they say, I seem a little closed-off, & a little sad. What gives, they ask. Who pooped in your mouth & called it salad?
Don't you think I know how I feel about the world? Don't you think I know that my weird little radio show that's not on the radio isn't like some kind of taxi without a passenger? Like a bus without one of those clumsy wheelchair ramps that take forever to deploy? Like an elevator that smells like vinegar & kills the cockroaches that crawl outside it? Like an escalator with dried ice cream caked forever into its ridges, sticking to your shoes & making you self-conscious as you stare at the pretty girl in the food court? Like a broken-down rickshaw mocking you as you walk, beaten & bruised, to the big Laotian city vowing revenge on the gangsters who robbed you, raped you & left you for dead? Like a baby carriage with a fat baby in it who's gotta be at least four & who sings like Rod Stewart? Like a dolly leaning slightly on an empty soda dispensing machine which rattles when the soda dispensing machine repairperson accidentally closes the door too fast & the noises causes him to drop fourteen dollars worth of quarters on the floor, which people inadvertently start kicking all over the place? Don't you think I know myself?
People tell me that self-awareness doesn't appear to be my problem. They say, why are you so defensive? Who stuck their finger in your ass & called it macaroni?
Don't you think I know that I appear defensive around you? Don't you see that one of my coping mechanisms is to continue doing Self Help Radio no matter who listens or where it is or whatever the fuck?
People tell me that they didn't even know I was a deejay. For the record, I tell them, I've ridden in taxis less than ten times in my life. People then tell me that they've got to go. & they go.
Don't you think I know how I feel about the world? Don't you think I know that my weird little radio show that's not on the radio isn't like some kind of taxi without a passenger? Like a bus without one of those clumsy wheelchair ramps that take forever to deploy? Like an elevator that smells like vinegar & kills the cockroaches that crawl outside it? Like an escalator with dried ice cream caked forever into its ridges, sticking to your shoes & making you self-conscious as you stare at the pretty girl in the food court? Like a broken-down rickshaw mocking you as you walk, beaten & bruised, to the big Laotian city vowing revenge on the gangsters who robbed you, raped you & left you for dead? Like a baby carriage with a fat baby in it who's gotta be at least four & who sings like Rod Stewart? Like a dolly leaning slightly on an empty soda dispensing machine which rattles when the soda dispensing machine repairperson accidentally closes the door too fast & the noises causes him to drop fourteen dollars worth of quarters on the floor, which people inadvertently start kicking all over the place? Don't you think I know myself?
People tell me that self-awareness doesn't appear to be my problem. They say, why are you so defensive? Who stuck their finger in your ass & called it macaroni?
Don't you think I know that I appear defensive around you? Don't you see that one of my coping mechanisms is to continue doing Self Help Radio no matter who listens or where it is or whatever the fuck?
People tell me that they didn't even know I was a deejay. For the record, I tell them, I've ridden in taxis less than ten times in my life. People then tell me that they've got to go. & they go.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Preface To Taxis: My Taxicab Confession
There's this guy we used to hang with who loved riding taxis & was always interested in riding different services, vehicles, etc., in different cities & countries. He was quirky but he quickly became as dull as the tourists who visit famous foreign places on package tours & come back with obligatory pictures of the Colosseum & the Eiffel Tower, since he never went anywhere except to take a taxi somewhere.
Taxi drivers didn't like him much, mostly because he didn't tip well if at all (how could he afford to? money you or I would spend on hotels & food this dumbass spent driving around!) & he also made fucked-up requests - like, he once took a New York taxi from New York to Washington DC, then took a DC cab to New York. But to be honest he wasn't a very likeable guy. He was slimy, both figuratively & literally - you always got the impression he did the very minimum he needed to not be considered filthy. Kind of "mediocre clean." No one knew why he had this love of taxis. It's like he just found something to do & pursued it. Like those dudes who pick a college major that they think their parents want them to & do it for the rest of their lives.
After awhile, the people who knew him - the people we hung around with - developed something like an allergy to this dude. By that I mean we'd get shit like hives & asthma attacks & cold sweats & stuff whenever he was around. Not only did we begin to avoid him - not answering his calls, making excuses for not seeing him, hiding behind curtains when he came by, refusing to frequent places we knew he regularly went to - I mean, none of us wanted to break out in hives! - but we eventually realized that the same thing happened whenever we were in taxis. You know? We could just sense he'd be there & we'd start to hyperventilate. So we stopped taking taxis. We opted for busses, or walking, or taking our own damn cars.
The last time we saw him was actually on the bus. The dumb fuck simply couldn't afford to take cabs any more. He was living on some kind of disability because of a work-related injury (he actually fell out of a slightly moving cab while on an errand from work) & his creepy personality, his questionable hygiene & his lack of any skills made him virtually unhireable. So there we were, trapped on the bus with him, feeling queasy but also wanting to be nice, & as the bus got on the highway (so we couldn't exit until we were in the suburbs - trapped!) he began to list his woes, & we nodded patiently, sweating a little, wondering which direction would be safest if we had to hurl. When he mentioned not being able to find a job, my girlfriend leaned forward as if she'd been hit by inspiration.
"You can't find work?" she said. "Nope," he said, kind of sniffling. "Jesus!" she said. "It's so obvious! You should be a cabbie!" He seemed weirdly gleeful as he thought about it. He even stopped talking to us, saving me from a night of scratching all over.
Later on, I said to my girlfriend, "Great! Now we can't take a taxi anymore!" She said, "We're haven't taken a taxi in months. But now we know he'll never be on the bus!"
Last I heard he was stranded in Laredo because he took some asshole there but the passenger stiffed him & now he couldn't afford the gas to get back to Austin.
Taxi drivers didn't like him much, mostly because he didn't tip well if at all (how could he afford to? money you or I would spend on hotels & food this dumbass spent driving around!) & he also made fucked-up requests - like, he once took a New York taxi from New York to Washington DC, then took a DC cab to New York. But to be honest he wasn't a very likeable guy. He was slimy, both figuratively & literally - you always got the impression he did the very minimum he needed to not be considered filthy. Kind of "mediocre clean." No one knew why he had this love of taxis. It's like he just found something to do & pursued it. Like those dudes who pick a college major that they think their parents want them to & do it for the rest of their lives.
After awhile, the people who knew him - the people we hung around with - developed something like an allergy to this dude. By that I mean we'd get shit like hives & asthma attacks & cold sweats & stuff whenever he was around. Not only did we begin to avoid him - not answering his calls, making excuses for not seeing him, hiding behind curtains when he came by, refusing to frequent places we knew he regularly went to - I mean, none of us wanted to break out in hives! - but we eventually realized that the same thing happened whenever we were in taxis. You know? We could just sense he'd be there & we'd start to hyperventilate. So we stopped taking taxis. We opted for busses, or walking, or taking our own damn cars.
The last time we saw him was actually on the bus. The dumb fuck simply couldn't afford to take cabs any more. He was living on some kind of disability because of a work-related injury (he actually fell out of a slightly moving cab while on an errand from work) & his creepy personality, his questionable hygiene & his lack of any skills made him virtually unhireable. So there we were, trapped on the bus with him, feeling queasy but also wanting to be nice, & as the bus got on the highway (so we couldn't exit until we were in the suburbs - trapped!) he began to list his woes, & we nodded patiently, sweating a little, wondering which direction would be safest if we had to hurl. When he mentioned not being able to find a job, my girlfriend leaned forward as if she'd been hit by inspiration.
"You can't find work?" she said. "Nope," he said, kind of sniffling. "Jesus!" she said. "It's so obvious! You should be a cabbie!" He seemed weirdly gleeful as he thought about it. He even stopped talking to us, saving me from a night of scratching all over.
Later on, I said to my girlfriend, "Great! Now we can't take a taxi anymore!" She said, "We're haven't taken a taxi in months. But now we know he'll never be on the bus!"
Last I heard he was stranded in Laredo because he took some asshole there but the passenger stiffed him & now he couldn't afford the gas to get back to Austin.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Seppuku
I completely concur with this review of Self Help Radio which I found in this magic blog in my head:
Self Help Radio mixes extravagent aesthetics into everyday life, serving as a spark of excitement in an otherwise dull, suburban existence. Familiar retro influences are recalled but not imitated and result in an original and relevant radio show. However this familiarity like so much on Self Help Radio comes with a twist as five individual characters set about stamping their unique personality onto a radio show.
Though recorded at Dickenbock Studios in Austin, Self Help Radio returned to its hometown of Garland, Texas, to write Self Help Radio. With its signature down-to-earth narratives forming intelligent and sharp observations about romance and life one might get an impression of a radio show with its feet firmly on the ground. However the airbreaks aren't in a vacuum but instead are set into groups of songs that suggest the moment someone's eardrums first vibrated to pop music in their bedroom at the age of nine. With super producer Richard D Dickenbock (the Dickenbocks, Dick & the Dickenbocks, The Richard Dick Dickenbock Experience, Dick & Richard Dickenbock) at the helm Self Help Radio is moving, effortly and upwards, to those giddy stratospheres that are rightfully theirs.
What a great review! You want to hear the show they're allegedly talking about about up there? Then go listen to a show selfhelpradio.net - this past week's show is waiting for you to take it home & love it like a stepchild. Or better!
Self Help Radio mixes extravagent aesthetics into everyday life, serving as a spark of excitement in an otherwise dull, suburban existence. Familiar retro influences are recalled but not imitated and result in an original and relevant radio show. However this familiarity like so much on Self Help Radio comes with a twist as five individual characters set about stamping their unique personality onto a radio show.
Though recorded at Dickenbock Studios in Austin, Self Help Radio returned to its hometown of Garland, Texas, to write Self Help Radio. With its signature down-to-earth narratives forming intelligent and sharp observations about romance and life one might get an impression of a radio show with its feet firmly on the ground. However the airbreaks aren't in a vacuum but instead are set into groups of songs that suggest the moment someone's eardrums first vibrated to pop music in their bedroom at the age of nine. With super producer Richard D Dickenbock (the Dickenbocks, Dick & the Dickenbocks, The Richard Dick Dickenbock Experience, Dick & Richard Dickenbock) at the helm Self Help Radio is moving, effortly and upwards, to those giddy stratospheres that are rightfully theirs.
What a great review! You want to hear the show they're allegedly talking about about up there? Then go listen to a show selfhelpradio.net - this past week's show is waiting for you to take it home & love it like a stepchild. Or better!
Friday, July 11, 2008
A Weekend Of Unattractive Hair
Confirming smart suspicions, which were all he had to go on, young Buck Disposable ventured a godawful guess about the Pants Project that, unfortunately, caused an uproar of uproarious laughter amongst his callow colleagues & kept the normally cool cucumber quiet for the rest of the colloquium.
Buck had never once in his life married any non-vertebrate - although he did once propose to his fern, & to be fair the filicophyte was looking damned sexy at the time - but he did have a bad habit of divorcing nearly every human he did marry. The amount of money he spent on his various ex-whatevers kept those wretches in plenty of fish food, but it kept Buck lean, mean & lacking steam. Witnesses & his affable biographer Notorious Rex have testified to the fact that he began his slippery slide into homicide about this time.
Buck Disposable lost the job at the Pants Project, & the Lawn/Garden Furniture Supervisor job at the Target-Mart, & Sexy Skool Lunch Koordinator gig for Unbelievably Gay Films, & finally ended up working as a Junior Stamp Counter for the United States Post Office. He was busy defacing a recently released Jesse Helms In Drag stamp when he accidentally opened up a National Rifle Association flyer - & the flyer opened up for Buck a whole new world.
Since you know the end of this story, it doesn't bear repeating, but it is the five year anniversary of that exciting slaughter today, & while the survivors & the relatives of the victims insist on digging up Buck's corpse & kicking it for seven full hours, & while his handgun advocate pals prefer to just fire into Buck's corpse repeatedly for hours after that, we here at Self Help Radio thought it would be helpful to catch up on the once infamous, but now barely famous, actors in the Buck Disposable saga - just to let you know "where are they now?"!
- Sara Meal, Buck's steady girl at the time, is still unable to play the piano without prompting.
- Postal Supervisor Clark "The Sorter" Donaldsonovich was in the hospital for a year after the shooting. Doctors told him that they couldn't remove the three bullets around his spine without killing him, which was sort of untrue; the doctors were really tired that day & Donaldsonovich was kind of an asshole. Donaldsonovich is still unable to walk, but the dude just won't shut up.
- "Grandma" Mel Thurb, Buck's hostage for the first twelve minutes & the one who held him hostage for the last twelve minutes, graduated last year from the Police Academy to become the world's oldest female cop at the age of ninety-four. The douchebags who put up those annoying billboards that say "[Insert Quality Here] - Pass It On" were about to put her face all over the country when, during her first stake out, she had a massive stroke & died.
- Newsman Rim Tussert, who covered the affair for nineteen hours, was all set to become a national news reporter for NBC when executives couldn't stop giggling over his first name, ending his career. He now mows lawns in Phoenix.
- Notorious Rex, official biographer of the bloodbath, is writing another goddamned book about it. We can barely fill a blog entry, but this guy... Sheesh.
- You'd think that little Dickie Snead would be much bigger than he was at the time, but he's still runty & smells funny. Maybe at the ten year recap. Weird.
- The fern is looking hot.
More information may or may not be available on this week's podcast of Self Help Radio, available tomorrow (Saturday the 12th), in the afternoon. Please to enjoy.
Buck had never once in his life married any non-vertebrate - although he did once propose to his fern, & to be fair the filicophyte was looking damned sexy at the time - but he did have a bad habit of divorcing nearly every human he did marry. The amount of money he spent on his various ex-whatevers kept those wretches in plenty of fish food, but it kept Buck lean, mean & lacking steam. Witnesses & his affable biographer Notorious Rex have testified to the fact that he began his slippery slide into homicide about this time.
Buck Disposable lost the job at the Pants Project, & the Lawn/Garden Furniture Supervisor job at the Target-Mart, & Sexy Skool Lunch Koordinator gig for Unbelievably Gay Films, & finally ended up working as a Junior Stamp Counter for the United States Post Office. He was busy defacing a recently released Jesse Helms In Drag stamp when he accidentally opened up a National Rifle Association flyer - & the flyer opened up for Buck a whole new world.
Since you know the end of this story, it doesn't bear repeating, but it is the five year anniversary of that exciting slaughter today, & while the survivors & the relatives of the victims insist on digging up Buck's corpse & kicking it for seven full hours, & while his handgun advocate pals prefer to just fire into Buck's corpse repeatedly for hours after that, we here at Self Help Radio thought it would be helpful to catch up on the once infamous, but now barely famous, actors in the Buck Disposable saga - just to let you know "where are they now?"!
- Sara Meal, Buck's steady girl at the time, is still unable to play the piano without prompting.
- Postal Supervisor Clark "The Sorter" Donaldsonovich was in the hospital for a year after the shooting. Doctors told him that they couldn't remove the three bullets around his spine without killing him, which was sort of untrue; the doctors were really tired that day & Donaldsonovich was kind of an asshole. Donaldsonovich is still unable to walk, but the dude just won't shut up.
- "Grandma" Mel Thurb, Buck's hostage for the first twelve minutes & the one who held him hostage for the last twelve minutes, graduated last year from the Police Academy to become the world's oldest female cop at the age of ninety-four. The douchebags who put up those annoying billboards that say "[Insert Quality Here] - Pass It On" were about to put her face all over the country when, during her first stake out, she had a massive stroke & died.
- Newsman Rim Tussert, who covered the affair for nineteen hours, was all set to become a national news reporter for NBC when executives couldn't stop giggling over his first name, ending his career. He now mows lawns in Phoenix.
- Notorious Rex, official biographer of the bloodbath, is writing another goddamned book about it. We can barely fill a blog entry, but this guy... Sheesh.
- You'd think that little Dickie Snead would be much bigger than he was at the time, but he's still runty & smells funny. Maybe at the ten year recap. Weird.
- The fern is looking hot.
More information may or may not be available on this week's podcast of Self Help Radio, available tomorrow (Saturday the 12th), in the afternoon. Please to enjoy.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Bent Barman Blues
I am in the middle of making a new Self Help Radio Extra for your listening enjoyment. How do I do this, you might wonder? Well, if you were me, this is how you would be doing it:
You would do what you always do, which is listen to music pretty much all the time. You have heard this weird thing that people apparently do, which is put music they already like on their mp3-playing device, but you don't do that - you get stuff & you digitize it to listen to it at every possible moment - while on the bus, while napping at your desk, while walking from bus stop to nap. Your mp3-playing device is the crucible in which your radio & other mixes are made pure! So you do that for a couple of weeks. Songs that you like are stored in the back of your mind which, unfortunately, are not always immune to alcohol & its evil erasing ways, so you try to occasionally put them on a playlist for later study. You call this playlist "shrextra." You don't know why.
Then, when you've gathered a few &/or it's time to make a mix for your friends at the Self Help Radio web page, you listen to the songs anew & then you think of other songs to add in (music is a conversation, after all) & after a time you'll notice you've filled some arbitrary quota - voila! Self Help Radio Extra!
As I said, it's not done yet, but by the end of the workday, you'll see a new mix at on the Self Help Radio Extra page. Do listen & enjoy. Not that I wouldn't do it if you don't listen, but I like to think I'm doing it for you.
You would do what you always do, which is listen to music pretty much all the time. You have heard this weird thing that people apparently do, which is put music they already like on their mp3-playing device, but you don't do that - you get stuff & you digitize it to listen to it at every possible moment - while on the bus, while napping at your desk, while walking from bus stop to nap. Your mp3-playing device is the crucible in which your radio & other mixes are made pure! So you do that for a couple of weeks. Songs that you like are stored in the back of your mind which, unfortunately, are not always immune to alcohol & its evil erasing ways, so you try to occasionally put them on a playlist for later study. You call this playlist "shrextra." You don't know why.
Then, when you've gathered a few &/or it's time to make a mix for your friends at the Self Help Radio web page, you listen to the songs anew & then you think of other songs to add in (music is a conversation, after all) & after a time you'll notice you've filled some arbitrary quota - voila! Self Help Radio Extra!
As I said, it's not done yet, but by the end of the workday, you'll see a new mix at on the Self Help Radio Extra page. Do listen & enjoy. Not that I wouldn't do it if you don't listen, but I like to think I'm doing it for you.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Whither Indiepop A To Z # 15?
Do you pants ever seem to be making fun of you? Please take that question in whichever way you want as long as it's not the naughty way. Oh, also the weight-issue way. Hadn't thought of that one.
The writer of this blog is trying very hard not to refer to himself in the first person.
What? Oh crap! The Blog Annotator has invaded the Self Help Radio blog!
The writer of this blog is trying to take your attention away from the comment above. The Blog Annotator shall repeat:
The writer of this blog is trying very hard not to refer to himself in the first person.
What's wrong with that? A radio show is not a person, & sometimes (like in this case) the person who does the radio show is really only half a person. Maybe five-eighths. Whatever. The meaning is clear.
The Blog Annotator does not know about this meaning of which you speak.
Take for example one of Blogspot's "blogs of note" or whatever (which Self Help Radio has never been noted for, thanks Blogspite), Cooking With Amy. This is a site with recipes & pictures of food. A quick count yielded over forty uses of the first-person pronoun on the first page. It's a page about cooking! It's supposed to just have directions & lists of ingredients!
The Blog Annotator takes your point. However, the Blog Annotator has checked the first page of this blog & found the use of the first-person pronoun on the last week's worth of posts to number over seventy. The Blog Annotator points out that this blog is supposed to be a supplement to a weekly radio show.
You're a real douche, you know that?
You're an egotistical pansy-assed pseudo-intellectual whose browser cache hasn't been emptied in weeks.
Yeah? Well then you're a son of a virus & a pop-up viagra ad left to grow like scum on a Fox News web site nurtured by the fevered clicks of delusional assholes who daydream of ass-fucking the President while the Vice-President shoots them in the face.
.......
God nothing to say to that, Blog Masturbator?
Um. The Blog Annotator is stunned & overwhelmed by your graphic insult.
Damn right!
The writer of this blog is trying very hard not to refer to himself in the first person.
What? Oh crap! The Blog Annotator has invaded the Self Help Radio blog!
The writer of this blog is trying to take your attention away from the comment above. The Blog Annotator shall repeat:
The writer of this blog is trying very hard not to refer to himself in the first person.
What's wrong with that? A radio show is not a person, & sometimes (like in this case) the person who does the radio show is really only half a person. Maybe five-eighths. Whatever. The meaning is clear.
The Blog Annotator does not know about this meaning of which you speak.
Take for example one of Blogspot's "blogs of note" or whatever (which Self Help Radio has never been noted for, thanks Blogspite), Cooking With Amy. This is a site with recipes & pictures of food. A quick count yielded over forty uses of the first-person pronoun on the first page. It's a page about cooking! It's supposed to just have directions & lists of ingredients!
The Blog Annotator takes your point. However, the Blog Annotator has checked the first page of this blog & found the use of the first-person pronoun on the last week's worth of posts to number over seventy. The Blog Annotator points out that this blog is supposed to be a supplement to a weekly radio show.
You're a real douche, you know that?
You're an egotistical pansy-assed pseudo-intellectual whose browser cache hasn't been emptied in weeks.
Yeah? Well then you're a son of a virus & a pop-up viagra ad left to grow like scum on a Fox News web site nurtured by the fevered clicks of delusional assholes who daydream of ass-fucking the President while the Vice-President shoots them in the face.
.......
God nothing to say to that, Blog Masturbator?
Um. The Blog Annotator is stunned & overwhelmed by your graphic insult.
Damn right!
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 15 - You'll Never Catch Me In Those Tired Shorts!
When you read about Tonga - & why wouldn't you? - you learn a lot of things that you might not ever have learned & further will never ever need to learn again. For example: Tonga and nearby Nauru have the world’s fattest populations. Also: 70% of Tongan women aged 15-85 are obese. & then: Tongan women are known for being skillful jugglers. Amazing!
Before you dismiss this as meaningless trivia, which it is, you may want to pause & reflect on how little you know about the world. Do you remember how stupid you felt at a recent gathering when someone corrected your assertion that Europe was a country? "Next to Italy, I think," you said. There was not a chance of getting laid that night & you knew it. Or what about the recent events in Columbia? Didn't you say, "I thought Columbia was that place where the two goth kids killed everyone." Sure, you let people think you were joking - nice save! - but that's only because you have a reputation for being monstrously unfunny. Don't you ever want to have sex again?
If you must learn about the world, why not start with Tonga? It's a very quiet pursuit - short of some irritating folks who may believe that "Lost" is filmed there, no one really cares about Tonga. Except, of course, the people who live there. But what's the chance you'll ever meet someone from Tonga? About as much a chance as meeting someone who's ever heard of Tonga! Just by learning a little about Tonga, you'll automatically know more than pretty much anyone. & you'll finally get to know how that feels.
You might want to stay away from this guy, though. He will most certainly know more about Tonga than you do. Not that you travel in the same circles, though - just be careful.
Tonga is only the beginning, you know. You can learn about all kinds of stuff. Some of it may actually be interesting. Then you'll know all kinds of stuff. & then - let the loving commence!
Before you dismiss this as meaningless trivia, which it is, you may want to pause & reflect on how little you know about the world. Do you remember how stupid you felt at a recent gathering when someone corrected your assertion that Europe was a country? "Next to Italy, I think," you said. There was not a chance of getting laid that night & you knew it. Or what about the recent events in Columbia? Didn't you say, "I thought Columbia was that place where the two goth kids killed everyone." Sure, you let people think you were joking - nice save! - but that's only because you have a reputation for being monstrously unfunny. Don't you ever want to have sex again?
If you must learn about the world, why not start with Tonga? It's a very quiet pursuit - short of some irritating folks who may believe that "Lost" is filmed there, no one really cares about Tonga. Except, of course, the people who live there. But what's the chance you'll ever meet someone from Tonga? About as much a chance as meeting someone who's ever heard of Tonga! Just by learning a little about Tonga, you'll automatically know more than pretty much anyone. & you'll finally get to know how that feels.
You might want to stay away from this guy, though. He will most certainly know more about Tonga than you do. Not that you travel in the same circles, though - just be careful.
Tonga is only the beginning, you know. You can learn about all kinds of stuff. Some of it may actually be interesting. Then you'll know all kinds of stuff. & then - let the loving commence!
Monday, July 07, 2008
Voicemail To Voicemail
Long three day weekends are never wasted by naps. The same is true with long, boring college classes. Naps are essential components of life, even if you're not very good at them. Which some of us are not. But perhaps someone can tell us how to nap. I don't know about you, but reading that thing made me sleepy.
Something that might keep you awake is this past week's episode of Self Help Radio, which had the improbable theme of "Saturday Night." You can listen to this show here & no matter what day it is, you can turn your it into Saturday night. I can say that another way. No matter what time of day it is, you can turn it into Saturday night. I can't say it any other way.
Since I work during the week like some people I know, I often cannot commit to the napping process. This makes me all forty-two kinds of sad. I consume large qualities of caffeine which is luckily available in easy-to-urinate soda bottle flavors. I occasionally wander out from the frigidaire air conditioning into the "real world" which in the summer in Texas is about three degrees cooler (Centigrade or Fahrenheit, it makes no difference for this hyperbole) than the average temperature of Hell, & the effect is much like an accidental belly flop in a public pool. (By the way, we called those "belly busters" when I was a kid, & trying to find images or videos of that online was a bust. Instead, "belly buster" seems to be a synonym for dieting. Or a chain restaurant in California. Or both.) I try to take seconds-long cat naps at the desk which make me seem drunk & stupid. Sometimes these things help, sometimes they don't. Mostly they don't. God I am sleepy.
I can't think of anything more to say about naps. But I have run out of time to leave you voicemail. I meant to leave you voicemail so you could leave me voicemail. I wanted to ask your something. No I can't. But don't call back right now. Call me back when you're sure I have remembered what I was going to say.
Something that might keep you awake is this past week's episode of Self Help Radio, which had the improbable theme of "Saturday Night." You can listen to this show here & no matter what day it is, you can turn your it into Saturday night. I can say that another way. No matter what time of day it is, you can turn it into Saturday night. I can't say it any other way.
Since I work during the week like some people I know, I often cannot commit to the napping process. This makes me all forty-two kinds of sad. I consume large qualities of caffeine which is luckily available in easy-to-urinate soda bottle flavors. I occasionally wander out from the frigidaire air conditioning into the "real world" which in the summer in Texas is about three degrees cooler (Centigrade or Fahrenheit, it makes no difference for this hyperbole) than the average temperature of Hell, & the effect is much like an accidental belly flop in a public pool. (By the way, we called those "belly busters" when I was a kid, & trying to find images or videos of that online was a bust. Instead, "belly buster" seems to be a synonym for dieting. Or a chain restaurant in California. Or both.) I try to take seconds-long cat naps at the desk which make me seem drunk & stupid. Sometimes these things help, sometimes they don't. Mostly they don't. God I am sleepy.
I can't think of anything more to say about naps. But I have run out of time to leave you voicemail. I meant to leave you voicemail so you could leave me voicemail. I wanted to ask your something. No I can't. But don't call back right now. Call me back when you're sure I have remembered what I was going to say.
Friday, July 04, 2008
The Years Have Not Been Kind
Amerigo Vespucci was a punk. There. I said it. On the fourth of July.
What would he care? Dude was Italian, after all. He would no more have wanted to hang with James Madison that you would. Now that guy was short. Teeny, really. Shortest United States President ever. Shorter by nearly a foot than his best butt buddy Jefferson. He could barely look over the Official Presidential Podium. They made him stand on a milk crate. In fact, one of the first crises of his presidency was when Charles C. Pinckney stole the milk crate during Madison's first two months. For this, you know, Pinckney was kneecapped by the Secret Service.
Of course, Vespucci was also a notorious firebug, so he probably would've loved to be at the White House when the British burned it down. So maybe he would've enjoyed having a slice of pizza & laughing laughing laughing at shrimp boat Madison while the mansion was in flames. But one shouldn't speculate about such things, not on America's birthday.
Vespucci also was fond of what would later be called "Cartesian Erotica," because Descartes made it popular at the court of Louis the thirteenth. But neither Vespucci nor Descartes really knew that that smut wasn't French nor Italian in origin, but Manichaean, originating in the more perverse writings of the bawdy upper class of the Sassanid Empire. It surpassed the rather tame Catholic porn of the time, which inevitably had to have the Pope involved, or at least an abbott with a strap-on. So while it was a step up, it most certainly wasn't as much fun as Boccaccio. That mofo knew how to throw down.
If you must celebrate the lucky sumbitch who got two continents named after him, not to mention a country sort of, go ahead. No one's stopping you. I know he wrote a few really good songs that emo bands cover regularly (although no one has ever really done a really good cover of his hit single "I Got Them Ain't No Way It's Asia, They'd Rather Believe Henry The Navigator, But Fuck Me If It's Not A Fourth Continent Blues") & I know he invented the shrug, but he was a punk. That's all I'm saying.
What would he care? Dude was Italian, after all. He would no more have wanted to hang with James Madison that you would. Now that guy was short. Teeny, really. Shortest United States President ever. Shorter by nearly a foot than his best butt buddy Jefferson. He could barely look over the Official Presidential Podium. They made him stand on a milk crate. In fact, one of the first crises of his presidency was when Charles C. Pinckney stole the milk crate during Madison's first two months. For this, you know, Pinckney was kneecapped by the Secret Service.
Of course, Vespucci was also a notorious firebug, so he probably would've loved to be at the White House when the British burned it down. So maybe he would've enjoyed having a slice of pizza & laughing laughing laughing at shrimp boat Madison while the mansion was in flames. But one shouldn't speculate about such things, not on America's birthday.
Vespucci also was fond of what would later be called "Cartesian Erotica," because Descartes made it popular at the court of Louis the thirteenth. But neither Vespucci nor Descartes really knew that that smut wasn't French nor Italian in origin, but Manichaean, originating in the more perverse writings of the bawdy upper class of the Sassanid Empire. It surpassed the rather tame Catholic porn of the time, which inevitably had to have the Pope involved, or at least an abbott with a strap-on. So while it was a step up, it most certainly wasn't as much fun as Boccaccio. That mofo knew how to throw down.
If you must celebrate the lucky sumbitch who got two continents named after him, not to mention a country sort of, go ahead. No one's stopping you. I know he wrote a few really good songs that emo bands cover regularly (although no one has ever really done a really good cover of his hit single "I Got Them Ain't No Way It's Asia, They'd Rather Believe Henry The Navigator, But Fuck Me If It's Not A Fourth Continent Blues") & I know he invented the shrug, but he was a punk. That's all I'm saying.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Snake Finger Sandwich
Since tomorrow is the Fourth Of July, which is a national holiday because no other month has the number four in it, I figured I'd do an American thing & link to this article/speech by E.L. Doctorow which is an exquisite discussion of how fucked our nation is. It's not nearly as funny as George Carlin, but it'll do.
I should also note that this weekend, which I for one have noted nearly two times before is a three-day weekend because of the Fourth Of July (so have a fifth of something on me) (just don't make yourself sixth), is the birthday of our youngest, Winston, pictured below when we still had green grass in our backyard - come to mention it, when we still had wood he hadn't chewed up in our backyard. He'll be one. He's a dwarf, which means he's had lots of health issues, & we've had a lot of dire predictions about how long he'd live (one vet told us he'd be dead a month from his visit), but he's much, much healthier now & as much a part of our household as the whiskey & the air conditioner. Happy birthday little Winston!
I may have something to say tomorrow, but I'll still busy gathering "Saturday night" songs for this week's show. It does something weird to your mind to spend all week thinking about Saturday night - although I suppose I'm now more like most Americans than I care to admit. So much for Independence Day!
I should also note that this weekend, which I for one have noted nearly two times before is a three-day weekend because of the Fourth Of July (so have a fifth of something on me) (just don't make yourself sixth), is the birthday of our youngest, Winston, pictured below when we still had green grass in our backyard - come to mention it, when we still had wood he hadn't chewed up in our backyard. He'll be one. He's a dwarf, which means he's had lots of health issues, & we've had a lot of dire predictions about how long he'd live (one vet told us he'd be dead a month from his visit), but he's much, much healthier now & as much a part of our household as the whiskey & the air conditioner. Happy birthday little Winston!
I may have something to say tomorrow, but I'll still busy gathering "Saturday night" songs for this week's show. It does something weird to your mind to spend all week thinking about Saturday night - although I suppose I'm now more like most Americans than I care to admit. So much for Independence Day!
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Whither Saturday Night?
That sounds like the title of a song!
Here's something perhaps mildly interesting about having this blog thing which virtually no one reads (except you, of course) & having written in it for a couple of years & there being lots of different titles & stuff: it causes search engines consternation. Or is that possible? Maybe it causes the users of search engines consternation. That sounds more appropriate. I will give you a few examples of search engine terms that have brought unsuspecting folks to this blog. I wish I knew what they made of it!
By far the saddest search phrase that brought a person to here is this: "leave my husband alone." Imagine! I happened to title one of these entries that about a year ago. I wish I could help. But what a weird sentence! Who would say such a thing? & if your husband is being bothered, shouldn't he be man enough to say it himself?
Or maybe this is sadder: "leave me alone husband." Yeah, that's sadder. It also sounds like the title to a song!
I titled an entry "Online Toffee Makers Revolt!" about a year ago, & so it found its way to someone looking for "online toffee makers." I don't personally know how to make toffee online, but I hope the person found it despite my obfuscation.
Someone found this blog by typing in "how to have whiter teeth." THAT is some self help.
Or what about this search phrase: "conjugal visits in austin texas"? Wouldn't you want to hear THAT story?! (The blog title, from last year, was "Early September Conjugal Visit." How I wish I could have really been talking about conjugal visits! Can they happen if your jailer is your own damaged self?)
Sometimes they're just odd. Here are a few:
- insomnia court cases
- quilting in Photoshop
- ferrigno disease
- runners are lame
- suck my fucking cock you prick
Okay, the last one isn't true. I just wanted to be profane.
I get a lot of hits for people looking for someone named "Gary Dickerson." That is, of course, me, but I understand (heck, I've even blogged about it) that there are other Gary Dickersons out there. But why not say hello if you know or don't know me? Maybe you're checking to see whether I've finally grown tired of the rot inside me & done what everyone expected me to do right after high school, which is eat a bullet all the way up my brain. Sorry! It hasn't happened yet! Be patient!
Oh, er, um, Saturday night. It's fun, right? Wanna go out?
Here's something perhaps mildly interesting about having this blog thing which virtually no one reads (except you, of course) & having written in it for a couple of years & there being lots of different titles & stuff: it causes search engines consternation. Or is that possible? Maybe it causes the users of search engines consternation. That sounds more appropriate. I will give you a few examples of search engine terms that have brought unsuspecting folks to this blog. I wish I knew what they made of it!
By far the saddest search phrase that brought a person to here is this: "leave my husband alone." Imagine! I happened to title one of these entries that about a year ago. I wish I could help. But what a weird sentence! Who would say such a thing? & if your husband is being bothered, shouldn't he be man enough to say it himself?
Or maybe this is sadder: "leave me alone husband." Yeah, that's sadder. It also sounds like the title to a song!
I titled an entry "Online Toffee Makers Revolt!" about a year ago, & so it found its way to someone looking for "online toffee makers." I don't personally know how to make toffee online, but I hope the person found it despite my obfuscation.
Someone found this blog by typing in "how to have whiter teeth." THAT is some self help.
Or what about this search phrase: "conjugal visits in austin texas"? Wouldn't you want to hear THAT story?! (The blog title, from last year, was "Early September Conjugal Visit." How I wish I could have really been talking about conjugal visits! Can they happen if your jailer is your own damaged self?)
Sometimes they're just odd. Here are a few:
- insomnia court cases
- quilting in Photoshop
- ferrigno disease
- runners are lame
- suck my fucking cock you prick
Okay, the last one isn't true. I just wanted to be profane.
I get a lot of hits for people looking for someone named "Gary Dickerson." That is, of course, me, but I understand (heck, I've even blogged about it) that there are other Gary Dickersons out there. But why not say hello if you know or don't know me? Maybe you're checking to see whether I've finally grown tired of the rot inside me & done what everyone expected me to do right after high school, which is eat a bullet all the way up my brain. Sorry! It hasn't happened yet! Be patient!
Oh, er, um, Saturday night. It's fun, right? Wanna go out?
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Preface To Saturday Night: It's Just Tuesday Afternoon. Calm Down.
For the past few weeks what I believe is a Bewick's Wren has been living in a hole in our garage, near the washer & dryer. This was, it turns out, a very wise thing, as only things with wings (unlike cats, say, or perhaps beagles) could get in or out, & sex was had & eggs were laid & soon enough I noticed whenever I let the dogs out that there was a lot of action going on, including the peeking out of little beaks from the hole & a harried-looking parents stuffing dead things into said beaks. At no point, by the way, did the Bewicks offer to pay any rent nor did they seem ashamed of their sudden, obviously fecund tenancy. Oh no. They acted as though they were entitled.
Time passed. On Sunday, the youngest of the household beaglets, known only as Winston, was seen perhaps chasing a live thing around the yard. It turned out that this was a baby bird with still some of whatever they call the feather fluff that's on them. Winston was dutifully taken away & forced to read the Bible (which he instead ate, so now he has to read Dianetics, which he refuses to eat) & we waited & sure enough, we soon found the happy parents (terrible tenants) leading the two youngsters through the treetops. The miracle of life in our own backyard! Without all that unnecessary voice-over work!
My point is this: you 21st Century Kids think everything revolves around a Saturday night. You think "party, party, party" even though the planet is dying & our frisbee-shaped alien overseers are eating our glaciers in protest! You can't see your hands in front of your trees - forest - whatever that saying is - because you've turned this one night of the week into some kind of holy time. Imagine, making some particular day a holy day! That would be so fucking dumb! Like, say, if I said, "You can't work on Sunday because it's a holy day." You'd be likely to give me a purple nurple & run away laughing. That's how inane it is. & you're doing it with Saturday night! Can't you see?
Listen to this: the miracle of life I described above, not the bird sex which is kind of sick, but the babies leaving the nest & going out to become accountants or file clerks or restaurant owners (like birds do), that happened not on a Saturday night, but on a Sunday afternoon. You heard me! You know what else? I never have magical things happen to me on a Saturday night. So there. You're proven wrong.
We could compromise. Let's make it Thursday midday. After all, you can sleep it off at work & no one will notice because it's Thursday. I'll bring my dark sunglasses, you bring the Riunite on ice. That's nice.
Time passed. On Sunday, the youngest of the household beaglets, known only as Winston, was seen perhaps chasing a live thing around the yard. It turned out that this was a baby bird with still some of whatever they call the feather fluff that's on them. Winston was dutifully taken away & forced to read the Bible (which he instead ate, so now he has to read Dianetics, which he refuses to eat) & we waited & sure enough, we soon found the happy parents (terrible tenants) leading the two youngsters through the treetops. The miracle of life in our own backyard! Without all that unnecessary voice-over work!
My point is this: you 21st Century Kids think everything revolves around a Saturday night. You think "party, party, party" even though the planet is dying & our frisbee-shaped alien overseers are eating our glaciers in protest! You can't see your hands in front of your trees - forest - whatever that saying is - because you've turned this one night of the week into some kind of holy time. Imagine, making some particular day a holy day! That would be so fucking dumb! Like, say, if I said, "You can't work on Sunday because it's a holy day." You'd be likely to give me a purple nurple & run away laughing. That's how inane it is. & you're doing it with Saturday night! Can't you see?
Listen to this: the miracle of life I described above, not the bird sex which is kind of sick, but the babies leaving the nest & going out to become accountants or file clerks or restaurant owners (like birds do), that happened not on a Saturday night, but on a Sunday afternoon. You heard me! You know what else? I never have magical things happen to me on a Saturday night. So there. You're proven wrong.
We could compromise. Let's make it Thursday midday. After all, you can sleep it off at work & no one will notice because it's Thursday. I'll bring my dark sunglasses, you bring the Riunite on ice. That's nice.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Countdown To Brush Fires!
Last week, I believe on Friday but it could have been earlier, my lovely girlfriend Magda bought me a number of two liter bottles of my (almost literal) poison of choice, which is Diet Dr. Peeper, of which I consume an enormous amount, mainly to let my organs know how much I dislike them. Fuck you gall bladder! This was very sweet of her but because it's been about one hundred & fifty degrees here every day & because she left them in the back seat of our car, some of them burst & others looked like some liquid had evaporated away & some had weird rounded bottoms because of the heat. Imagine if she had left our baby in there! Hell, imagine if we had a baby!
Some of the bottles were ruined, so I ate them. I mean, so I emptied them & put them in a recycling bin. The others seemed fine, so I put them on the shelf & ate them. No, no. I just put them on the shelf.
Because I am terrified of expiration dates (I never seem to finish stuff in time), I always put new stuff in back, & I had a few bottles left. But later in the day I thought, "Perhaps I should taste them. Just in case. While I still have some old bottles left."
So I did. You know that way you feel when you open a seemingly new bottle of wine & have a sip & it's spoiled or been corked or it's just a bottle of urine someone left at your party because they're an asshole? Somehow this was worse. See, Dirt Mr. Pipper doesn't really taste like regular Dr. Ripper. It doesn't really taste like anything soda-y at all. It's not good, but luckily I've acquired a taste for it & I need a regular caffeine delivery system that doesn't involve hot liquids. (It's better than anything else, though. Diet Croke can SUCK IT.)
This taste was like what plastic-eating plastic beings enjoy as a refreshing beverage. This taste was like if you fell asleep in the pool with your mouth against a plastic pool ball & the sun was hot & it slightly melted into your mouth. This taste was like making out with Plastic Man. It was awful.
I tell you all this because I can't seem to get it out of my mouth. I've tried everything, even hot liquids, but no luck. If you'd like to help, one way to start is to visit selfhelpradio.net & listen to last week's show, which was & is about "cut," whatever that means. It may not seem to help, but I promise it will.
& kids, don't leave sodas in the car on hot days. What the fuck were you thinking?
Some of the bottles were ruined, so I ate them. I mean, so I emptied them & put them in a recycling bin. The others seemed fine, so I put them on the shelf & ate them. No, no. I just put them on the shelf.
Because I am terrified of expiration dates (I never seem to finish stuff in time), I always put new stuff in back, & I had a few bottles left. But later in the day I thought, "Perhaps I should taste them. Just in case. While I still have some old bottles left."
So I did. You know that way you feel when you open a seemingly new bottle of wine & have a sip & it's spoiled or been corked or it's just a bottle of urine someone left at your party because they're an asshole? Somehow this was worse. See, Dirt Mr. Pipper doesn't really taste like regular Dr. Ripper. It doesn't really taste like anything soda-y at all. It's not good, but luckily I've acquired a taste for it & I need a regular caffeine delivery system that doesn't involve hot liquids. (It's better than anything else, though. Diet Croke can SUCK IT.)
This taste was like what plastic-eating plastic beings enjoy as a refreshing beverage. This taste was like if you fell asleep in the pool with your mouth against a plastic pool ball & the sun was hot & it slightly melted into your mouth. This taste was like making out with Plastic Man. It was awful.
I tell you all this because I can't seem to get it out of my mouth. I've tried everything, even hot liquids, but no luck. If you'd like to help, one way to start is to visit selfhelpradio.net & listen to last week's show, which was & is about "cut," whatever that means. It may not seem to help, but I promise it will.
& kids, don't leave sodas in the car on hot days. What the fuck were you thinking?
Friday, June 27, 2008
Weird. I Missed A Day.
You heard me! I zoned out today working on tomorrow's fabulous show & missed writing in my blog! Also, I'm going to visit my mother tomorrow, so my brain is only working at embarrassed second grader capacity. Forgive me. I'll write more funny funny the next time.
But can I remind you that tomorrow at selfhelpradio.net there'll be a new show? & though I will be sober, it'll still be ugly? Wait. What?
But can I remind you that tomorrow at selfhelpradio.net there'll be a new show? & though I will be sober, it'll still be ugly? Wait. What?
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Did You Want Extra Extra With That?
While virtually unknown outside the seedy world of truck stops & logging towns, Self Help Radio continues to this very day to provide musical foodstuffs to a tone-hungry world. For this June of 2008 (patent pending), Self Help Radio offers once more an "extra" in the form of Self Help Radio Extra, a homemade mix made by a homeboy called me in the privy of my own home. It features new stuff from the likes of Johnny Foreigner, Sparks, Tilly & The All, & The Sound Of Arrows plus old stuff that the new stuff reminded me of. Have a look. Have a listen. It's from me to you.
Self Help Radio Extra. Insert some made up slogan here, but make it sound like the deep voice who did the "Better than it has to be, Amalie" commercials in the 80's. Which I can't find on You Tube. But I did find a piano-playing cat. So that's something.
Self Help Radio Extra. Insert some made up slogan here, but make it sound like the deep voice who did the "Better than it has to be, Amalie" commercials in the 80's. Which I can't find on You Tube. But I did find a piano-playing cat. So that's something.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Whither Cut?
There are sixty-five definitions for the verb "cut" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Can you imagine? Let me say that again, in bold: There are sixty-five definitions for the verb "cut" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Such a little verb!
Now you may be thinking, with sixty-five definitions for the verb alone, surely a show of this kind can be easily done, & the host must be a lazy fuck indeed. But wait! Some of the definitions are bee-zar! Listen:
8. b. (slang or colloq.) to cut it too fat: to ‘come it strong’, overdo a thing.
10. To break up, reduce, or dissolve the viscidity of (a liquid, phlegm, etc.).
30. Dancing. (intr.) To spring from the ground, and, while in the air, to twiddle the feet one in front of the other alternately with great rapidity.
44 c. (used in cheese-making) To add extra stank to the cheese; to poot it up.
Okay, I made up the last one. But seriously, that's all fourteen different kinds of nutty! I can't find any songs for such things!
My favorite use of cut is of course definition 22b:
22. b. To dilute or adulterate. Chiefly U.S. "He cut his heroin with confectioner's sugar to make it more delicious."
The show isn't really supposed to be about the kind of cutting we associate with goth girls. Although I'd love to listen to a radio show about these kind of cutters. But they don't even have a complete wikipedia entry!
I know the one you like best. Admit it, music lover: 23d.
23 d. Sound Recording. To record; to make (a record). orig. U.S.
Or is it 21e, film buff?
21. e. (Cinemat., Radio.) trans. To edit (a film, etc.). Also intr., to make a quick transition from one shot to the next. imp. A signal to stop.
"Cut!"
You'll find me in my trailer.
Now you may be thinking, with sixty-five definitions for the verb alone, surely a show of this kind can be easily done, & the host must be a lazy fuck indeed. But wait! Some of the definitions are bee-zar! Listen:
8. b. (slang or colloq.) to cut it too fat: to ‘come it strong’, overdo a thing.
10. To break up, reduce, or dissolve the viscidity of (a liquid, phlegm, etc.).
30. Dancing. (intr.) To spring from the ground, and, while in the air, to twiddle the feet one in front of the other alternately with great rapidity.
44 c. (used in cheese-making) To add extra stank to the cheese; to poot it up.
Okay, I made up the last one. But seriously, that's all fourteen different kinds of nutty! I can't find any songs for such things!
My favorite use of cut is of course definition 22b:
22. b. To dilute or adulterate. Chiefly U.S. "He cut his heroin with confectioner's sugar to make it more delicious."
The show isn't really supposed to be about the kind of cutting we associate with goth girls. Although I'd love to listen to a radio show about these kind of cutters. But they don't even have a complete wikipedia entry!
I know the one you like best. Admit it, music lover: 23d.
23 d. Sound Recording. To record; to make (a record). orig. U.S.
Or is it 21e, film buff?
21. e. (Cinemat., Radio.) trans. To edit (a film, etc.). Also intr., to make a quick transition from one shot to the next. imp. A signal to stop.
"Cut!"
You'll find me in my trailer.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Preface To Cut: A Lifetime Fighting Against Shaving
First two paragraphs of a new science fiction blockbuster I'm writing:
Ronald stood silently with a cap gun against the head of his little brother Rudolfo. Rudolfo had no idea whether the cap gun was loaded or not. Plus he really had to go pee pee & knew that, the minute the cap went off, not only would he experience a painful ringing in his head (this wasn't the first time Ronald had put a cap gun to his head), but he'd also pee all over himself. NOT AGAIN! he thought to himself.
Ronald had only the slightest sense of his little brother's plight. Unbeknownst to Rudolfo, Ronald was able to sense, unlike other human beings, the invisible aliens which live among & slowly eat the souls of human beings. Ronald had watched his parents get consumed until all that was left was their bodies as empty husks. He didn't want it to happen to him, & he definitely didn't want it to happen to his little brother Rudolfo. NEVER AGAIN! he thought to himself.
A word about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may be inserted into this section of the narrative at some future time. The wikipedia article is kinda long & I am still a little sleepy after lunch. Also, while readers may assume Ronald & Rudolfo are children, I need to add dialogue which suggests they're in their late thirties & spend way too much money on strippers.
Also, Kjuch, the lead soul eater, should eventually realize that his people, by eating the souls of corporeal beings, are endangering their own immortal souls, as he realizes by reading, while he's eating a fundamentalist preacher, the Bible in the preacher's hands. Kjuch then attempts to proselytize to his people, but they don't want to learn to read & they argue that the religious people, whose souls are already kinda thin, taste worse than the non-believers. Kjuch sticks to his guns & starves to death, as his people can't eat anything but human souls.
Note: can we get that "Young At Heart" group to do the soundtrack? Maybe covering nothing but Siouxsie & The Banshee songs. & make it a point that both Ronald & Kjuch move their lips while they read. That'll establish the empathic relationship between monster & hunter required for the ages 14 - 21 demographic.
There'll need to be a seemingly plausible radiation sequence where Kjuch is visible to all humans - or maybe just Shriners - & them a long boat chase through Venice. I've always wanted to go to Venice. I've always wanted a boat chase.
For further reading, I suggest you listen to last week's Self Help Radio, which was about TRASH, available not at finer stores near you, but at the shabbily appointed website called selfhelpradio.net. This podcast not only contains the germs of this science fiction blockbuster, but... No, it just contains the germs. It's trash, after all.
Stay tuned! I haven't finished writing this & now Singapore businessmen are offering me seventeen million dollars if I let their favorite hookers play the strippers in the movie. This should be in post-production in time for Christmas!
Ronald stood silently with a cap gun against the head of his little brother Rudolfo. Rudolfo had no idea whether the cap gun was loaded or not. Plus he really had to go pee pee & knew that, the minute the cap went off, not only would he experience a painful ringing in his head (this wasn't the first time Ronald had put a cap gun to his head), but he'd also pee all over himself. NOT AGAIN! he thought to himself.
Ronald had only the slightest sense of his little brother's plight. Unbeknownst to Rudolfo, Ronald was able to sense, unlike other human beings, the invisible aliens which live among & slowly eat the souls of human beings. Ronald had watched his parents get consumed until all that was left was their bodies as empty husks. He didn't want it to happen to him, & he definitely didn't want it to happen to his little brother Rudolfo. NEVER AGAIN! he thought to himself.
A word about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may be inserted into this section of the narrative at some future time. The wikipedia article is kinda long & I am still a little sleepy after lunch. Also, while readers may assume Ronald & Rudolfo are children, I need to add dialogue which suggests they're in their late thirties & spend way too much money on strippers.
Also, Kjuch, the lead soul eater, should eventually realize that his people, by eating the souls of corporeal beings, are endangering their own immortal souls, as he realizes by reading, while he's eating a fundamentalist preacher, the Bible in the preacher's hands. Kjuch then attempts to proselytize to his people, but they don't want to learn to read & they argue that the religious people, whose souls are already kinda thin, taste worse than the non-believers. Kjuch sticks to his guns & starves to death, as his people can't eat anything but human souls.
Note: can we get that "Young At Heart" group to do the soundtrack? Maybe covering nothing but Siouxsie & The Banshee songs. & make it a point that both Ronald & Kjuch move their lips while they read. That'll establish the empathic relationship between monster & hunter required for the ages 14 - 21 demographic.
There'll need to be a seemingly plausible radiation sequence where Kjuch is visible to all humans - or maybe just Shriners - & them a long boat chase through Venice. I've always wanted to go to Venice. I've always wanted a boat chase.
For further reading, I suggest you listen to last week's Self Help Radio, which was about TRASH, available not at finer stores near you, but at the shabbily appointed website called selfhelpradio.net. This podcast not only contains the germs of this science fiction blockbuster, but... No, it just contains the germs. It's trash, after all.
Stay tuned! I haven't finished writing this & now Singapore businessmen are offering me seventeen million dollars if I let their favorite hookers play the strippers in the movie. This should be in post-production in time for Christmas!
Monday, June 23, 2008
George Carlin
I just found out. I shouldn't be sad - he lived one hell of a life. Imagine! Being so funny, so smart, so insightful - & getting paid for it? Because that what he did. His is a voice that'll be missed.
I had a really good friend - my very first best friend - in middle & high school named Scott Hauff. Scott was always quoting George Carlin to me, routines like the "hippy-dippy weatherman." It was one of those cases where I initially thought he - that is to say, Scott - was coming up with the routines. Not that he took credit for it, but he did make me laugh enough to go to the source.
Sometimes I can be a prude & find coarse humor a little too much, so I've never been a fan of his fart jokes. I'm not interested in the least in marijuana, so the fact that my stoner brothers spoke of him as being in the same category as Cheech & Chong was off-putting. What attracted me first to Carlin in my adult life was his observations on language. Here are two mp3s from the audio version of what I suppose is his last book, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?, which are his observations about the language of poor people:
His observations on language of course led him to talk about politics & how those in power use language to keep power. John Nichols has written a piece about him called George Carlin: American Radical that says it better than I could.
I don't mean to focus just on that aspect, because he was just as funny when he was being absurd. He was one funny motherfucker, but his humor could also lead you to profound insight. There are very few comedians about whom you can say that.
Man. A lifetime of quotes, observation, gut laughs, embarrassment. I still think of what he said about air travel whenever a plane lands & the crew says "Welcome to [insert city]!" Carlin said, "How can they welcome you if they just got there themselves?"
Of course, as a radio guy, you know the bit that has probably affected me most in my "career." It led a Supreme Court case that defined what we can & can't say on the radio. & his routine was read into the decision. Immortality!
I never got to see him live (just on the TV), but I've gobbled up as much as I can find & will continue to do so. & of course I've played him on my show whenever possible. I'll miss his insight, but I'll say again, he lived one hell of a life. I'm glad I existed in the world when he did for as long as I did. & I'm glad we existed together in a time when his observations & writings could be saved & easily accessed.
Thank you, George Carlin, & goodbye!
I had a really good friend - my very first best friend - in middle & high school named Scott Hauff. Scott was always quoting George Carlin to me, routines like the "hippy-dippy weatherman." It was one of those cases where I initially thought he - that is to say, Scott - was coming up with the routines. Not that he took credit for it, but he did make me laugh enough to go to the source.
Sometimes I can be a prude & find coarse humor a little too much, so I've never been a fan of his fart jokes. I'm not interested in the least in marijuana, so the fact that my stoner brothers spoke of him as being in the same category as Cheech & Chong was off-putting. What attracted me first to Carlin in my adult life was his observations on language. Here are two mp3s from the audio version of what I suppose is his last book, When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?, which are his observations about the language of poor people:
His observations on language of course led him to talk about politics & how those in power use language to keep power. John Nichols has written a piece about him called George Carlin: American Radical that says it better than I could.
I don't mean to focus just on that aspect, because he was just as funny when he was being absurd. He was one funny motherfucker, but his humor could also lead you to profound insight. There are very few comedians about whom you can say that.
Man. A lifetime of quotes, observation, gut laughs, embarrassment. I still think of what he said about air travel whenever a plane lands & the crew says "Welcome to [insert city]!" Carlin said, "How can they welcome you if they just got there themselves?"
Of course, as a radio guy, you know the bit that has probably affected me most in my "career." It led a Supreme Court case that defined what we can & can't say on the radio. & his routine was read into the decision. Immortality!
I never got to see him live (just on the TV), but I've gobbled up as much as I can find & will continue to do so. & of course I've played him on my show whenever possible. I'll miss his insight, but I'll say again, he lived one hell of a life. I'm glad I existed in the world when he did for as long as I did. & I'm glad we existed together in a time when his observations & writings could be saved & easily accessed.
Thank you, George Carlin, & goodbye!
Friday, June 20, 2008
The Inbox Crowd
Much thanks to the weirdo who thought he would repay me for the suggestion of the album cover to name matching game yesterday with a link to Puzzlefarter. Yes, I've been playing it. No, I am not very good at it. That should come as a relief, but it does not. I like to win!
I am about to go record the airbreaks for the Trash show. I have a special guest, a person who writes books about the garbage of famous people. Do you think he'll smell nice? I hope so. It's a smallish place where we record. One unpleasant aroma could ruin the whole session. But the show will be great. Trust me on this. Much, much better than the imaginary one I did in my head four years ago. That one sucked.
Do feel free to send me links to ridiculous online games that are a complete waste of time. Otherwise I'll do work, & no one - not even my boss! - wants to see my do that.
& do find me tomorrow afternoon at selfhelpradio.net for this week's show - all about trash. I haven't heard it yet, but I think it'll be awesome.
I am about to go record the airbreaks for the Trash show. I have a special guest, a person who writes books about the garbage of famous people. Do you think he'll smell nice? I hope so. It's a smallish place where we record. One unpleasant aroma could ruin the whole session. But the show will be great. Trust me on this. Much, much better than the imaginary one I did in my head four years ago. That one sucked.
Do feel free to send me links to ridiculous online games that are a complete waste of time. Otherwise I'll do work, & no one - not even my boss! - wants to see my do that.
& do find me tomorrow afternoon at selfhelpradio.net for this week's show - all about trash. I haven't heard it yet, but I think it'll be awesome.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Not Any Longer Confessive Obpulsive
Ack! I can't stop playing this game! It's a game where you have like twenty seconds to match nine album (or CD) covers with the names of the record. I'm not very good at it, though. The category I most find myself in is "alternative" although if they had a category called "records Gary's brothers had that he rifled through continually when he was a young kid" I'd be awesome at it.
There were certain records I would never have listened to, not in a million years, but whose sleeves I found amazing, like a panel of a long comic book the rest of which existed entirely in my head. For example, the cover to Queen's News Of The World (the image doesn't show you how the record folded out), which I would never, even as a kid, have listened to of my own free will, although, of course, I've heard the songs "We Will Rock You" & "We Are The Champions" more times than my mother ever told me she loved me. But the cover! An alien made of stone killing all those hippies! The stories that album cover brought into my head!
There were other memorable ones, but I can't find images of them online - I guess they were not as famouss, or maybe I'm remembering the names wrong - but games like this do make me miss vinyl & the attention lavished on album covers. Maybe I suck at the game because most of the records in the "alternative" category are from CDs & who the fuck pays attention to a CD cover?
Record collecting friends back in the day often would distinguish between a "great package" - the music & the presentation were both great - & great records that had shitty sleeves & great sleeves hiding awful records. Middle- to late-period 4AD records often got that last complaint - 23 Envelope did a smashing job with the sleeve but the record is unfuckinglistenable. Do you hear me Ultra Vivid Scene? Do you?
(That's not really my opinion. I was in character! Plus, that first Ultra Vivid Scene record, the one with the toothbrush on the cover - that's not a very good presentation for a decent pop record.)
I do miss vinyl, but not enough to actually buy it. Ack! What a pain in the ass! It's so much easier to be digital. & maybe I'm a philistine, but it sounds fine to me. But perhaps the vinyl-o-philes are winning. Which is great. There'll be more records whose sleeves I don't recognize in work-habit-destroying games like this one.
No worries! My iPod will tell me what the sleeve looks like!
There were certain records I would never have listened to, not in a million years, but whose sleeves I found amazing, like a panel of a long comic book the rest of which existed entirely in my head. For example, the cover to Queen's News Of The World (the image doesn't show you how the record folded out), which I would never, even as a kid, have listened to of my own free will, although, of course, I've heard the songs "We Will Rock You" & "We Are The Champions" more times than my mother ever told me she loved me. But the cover! An alien made of stone killing all those hippies! The stories that album cover brought into my head!
There were other memorable ones, but I can't find images of them online - I guess they were not as famouss, or maybe I'm remembering the names wrong - but games like this do make me miss vinyl & the attention lavished on album covers. Maybe I suck at the game because most of the records in the "alternative" category are from CDs & who the fuck pays attention to a CD cover?
Record collecting friends back in the day often would distinguish between a "great package" - the music & the presentation were both great - & great records that had shitty sleeves & great sleeves hiding awful records. Middle- to late-period 4AD records often got that last complaint - 23 Envelope did a smashing job with the sleeve but the record is unfuckinglistenable. Do you hear me Ultra Vivid Scene? Do you?
(That's not really my opinion. I was in character! Plus, that first Ultra Vivid Scene record, the one with the toothbrush on the cover - that's not a very good presentation for a decent pop record.)
I do miss vinyl, but not enough to actually buy it. Ack! What a pain in the ass! It's so much easier to be digital. & maybe I'm a philistine, but it sounds fine to me. But perhaps the vinyl-o-philes are winning. Which is great. There'll be more records whose sleeves I don't recognize in work-habit-destroying games like this one.
No worries! My iPod will tell me what the sleeve looks like!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Whither Trash?
If there's anything you must take away from a cursory glance at post-ideological America in the twenty-first of all possible centuries, it's this: the fucking place is a mess. What the hell went on here? Your father & I were just gone for the weekend & we come back & - I mean, just look at Wyoming. Look at it.
I am completely ripping off a Kids In The Hall sketch right now. I can't remember much of it, so I can't find it in their episode guides or on YouTube, but I know a Kids In The Hall sketch when I rip it off. & that's one of them. Maybe.
I would also like to point out that it's the second time this week I have used some sort of construction involving "the 21st century." I believe on Monday I used the phrase "the twenty-first of all human centuries" & just above I noted that this was "the twenty-first of all possible centuries." I would like you to incorporate this sort of talk in your everyday language. & not just about centuries. It helps to imagine that you're addressing a large audience. A large, nude audience.
You know what? I was totally not ripping off a Kids In The Hall sketch up there. It was an homage. Which reminds me. I once used the word "homage" in a phone call to someone who probably never called me back, but I pronounced it "hommedge." A friend who was sitting next to me corrected me when I got off the phone. He asked me where I heard the word & why I was pronouncing it wrong, & I said (which was true) that I had read it & never heard it spoken. That happened with the word "ascertain" too. & "metropolis," which I used to pronounce met-ro-pol-is, not muh-trop-o-lis. Oh shit! Maybe that dude didn't call me back because I mispronounced homage! What a judgmental fuck.
It might not be a Kids In The Hall sketch, but I'm pretty sure it is. I seem to remember Dave Foley in it. They throw a party & they trash the country & they have to clean it up before their parents get home. Who else could it be? That sketch freaked me out the first time I saw it, in a similar way to how I felt the first time I saw the Monty Python Olympic Hide & Seek. That gave me nightmares.
I wasn't writing in this blog in 2004, but since I did an imaginary radio show about trash then, you can go back & read my imaginary blog where I imaginarily discussed why I chose that theme. I can't imagine I ripped off the Kids In The Hall at that time - but I probably did.
I am completely ripping off a Kids In The Hall sketch right now. I can't remember much of it, so I can't find it in their episode guides or on YouTube, but I know a Kids In The Hall sketch when I rip it off. & that's one of them. Maybe.
I would also like to point out that it's the second time this week I have used some sort of construction involving "the 21st century." I believe on Monday I used the phrase "the twenty-first of all human centuries" & just above I noted that this was "the twenty-first of all possible centuries." I would like you to incorporate this sort of talk in your everyday language. & not just about centuries. It helps to imagine that you're addressing a large audience. A large, nude audience.
You know what? I was totally not ripping off a Kids In The Hall sketch up there. It was an homage. Which reminds me. I once used the word "homage" in a phone call to someone who probably never called me back, but I pronounced it "hommedge." A friend who was sitting next to me corrected me when I got off the phone. He asked me where I heard the word & why I was pronouncing it wrong, & I said (which was true) that I had read it & never heard it spoken. That happened with the word "ascertain" too. & "metropolis," which I used to pronounce met-ro-pol-is, not muh-trop-o-lis. Oh shit! Maybe that dude didn't call me back because I mispronounced homage! What a judgmental fuck.
It might not be a Kids In The Hall sketch, but I'm pretty sure it is. I seem to remember Dave Foley in it. They throw a party & they trash the country & they have to clean it up before their parents get home. Who else could it be? That sketch freaked me out the first time I saw it, in a similar way to how I felt the first time I saw the Monty Python Olympic Hide & Seek. That gave me nightmares.
I wasn't writing in this blog in 2004, but since I did an imaginary radio show about trash then, you can go back & read my imaginary blog where I imaginarily discussed why I chose that theme. I can't imagine I ripped off the Kids In The Hall at that time - but I probably did.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Preface To Trash: Wait! Didn't You Do A Trash Show Before?
I got this email from the little voice that lives inside my head:
Dear fuckface,
I know you pride yourself on being "original" & "edgy" & "heterosexual," but I am writing to inform you that you are totally re-doing one of your old themes this week. Ha! This is hubris, my friend! Your pride goeth & then you fucking fall! Because you're all like "I never do the same theme except when it's a special event because I am that good a deejay & I am also a girl waah! waah!" But ha ha! You did a "trash" show back in the summer of 2004! What do you say to that?
love,
your inner voice
I wish I could tell you how kind it was of my inner voice to write me an email. Normally it just engenders in me tremendous guilt & shame that I can only forget about with massive amounts of alcohol. This may mean that our relationship is getting better.
What my little voice tells you is true, & you can see it on my website on the page of 2004 playlists. According to this page, on June 30, 2004, I did a show about "Trash." But wait! Look what it says next to it: "Imaginary Radio Show # 3"! What could that mean?
It means that, in the summer of 2004, I was not doing my radio show. The reason for it had to do with internal KOOP politics - I had offended the regime in power at the time, & they used their cronies to accuse me of stuff, which resulted in me not doing a radio show for a couple of months. In the interval, I pretended to do radio shows - if it happened now, I'd be doing podcasts - but then, I just posted playlists. I probably also burned myself some CDs to listen to, or to send to my girlfriend, who was in New York that summer. I just didn't want to get out of practice. The point is, I never really did a radio show with the theme of "trash" - I just made a playlist. Is all.
Hey! I just got another email from the little voice that lives in my head:
Dear douchebag,
You win - but only on a technicality. Next time, though, I bury you. I fucking obliterate you.
can't wait for dinner,
your inner voice
If my inner voice ever figures out how to text, I will be in all thirty-two kinds of hell.
Dear fuckface,
I know you pride yourself on being "original" & "edgy" & "heterosexual," but I am writing to inform you that you are totally re-doing one of your old themes this week. Ha! This is hubris, my friend! Your pride goeth & then you fucking fall! Because you're all like "I never do the same theme except when it's a special event because I am that good a deejay & I am also a girl waah! waah!" But ha ha! You did a "trash" show back in the summer of 2004! What do you say to that?
love,
your inner voice
I wish I could tell you how kind it was of my inner voice to write me an email. Normally it just engenders in me tremendous guilt & shame that I can only forget about with massive amounts of alcohol. This may mean that our relationship is getting better.
What my little voice tells you is true, & you can see it on my website on the page of 2004 playlists. According to this page, on June 30, 2004, I did a show about "Trash." But wait! Look what it says next to it: "Imaginary Radio Show # 3"! What could that mean?
It means that, in the summer of 2004, I was not doing my radio show. The reason for it had to do with internal KOOP politics - I had offended the regime in power at the time, & they used their cronies to accuse me of stuff, which resulted in me not doing a radio show for a couple of months. In the interval, I pretended to do radio shows - if it happened now, I'd be doing podcasts - but then, I just posted playlists. I probably also burned myself some CDs to listen to, or to send to my girlfriend, who was in New York that summer. I just didn't want to get out of practice. The point is, I never really did a radio show with the theme of "trash" - I just made a playlist. Is all.
Hey! I just got another email from the little voice that lives in my head:
Dear douchebag,
You win - but only on a technicality. Next time, though, I bury you. I fucking obliterate you.
can't wait for dinner,
your inner voice
If my inner voice ever figures out how to text, I will be in all thirty-two kinds of hell.
Monday, June 16, 2008
A Punishment Of Britches
Let it never be said, in the annals of all humankind, in this choked & stinkish blog-o-sphere, where altitude & attitude trump rectitude & pulchritude, where each voice is equal in theory but unreadable in practice, where one is judged by content management systems, network & web page affiliations, ad clicks & crossover marketing potential, as we hunker down in this, the twenty-first of all human centuries, where challenges are affirmations & every diagnosis is also a prognosis, where the last of labels shall set us all free, where the digital boundaries are drawn by RAM & CPU, not by surveyor & natural landmark, where the slowly disappearing highway on the emptying American terrain reappears in our mind, unbounded, in leaps & bounds, at the outset on its last legs, fetid, fertile, fanciful, false, the whole slew of this & that not to replace those & them, but to render them neutral & neutered, to placate power while posing as populist, where... In this... Let it not be said... As we in this century are... Uh... Fuck!
I lost my train of thought.
Oh, well, why not just go listen to the "Pale Show," this past week's episode of Self Help Radio, which is available for your listerine pleasure at selfhelpradio.net. It's free of harmful ultraviolet rays, although it may have dangerous musics.
Seriously, though, I was going to say something meaningful up there. It's just, fuck! I lost my train of thought.
I lost my train of thought.
Oh, well, why not just go listen to the "Pale Show," this past week's episode of Self Help Radio, which is available for your listerine pleasure at selfhelpradio.net. It's free of harmful ultraviolet rays, although it may have dangerous musics.
Seriously, though, I was going to say something meaningful up there. It's just, fuck! I lost my train of thought.
Friday, June 13, 2008
What To Do When Your Teeth Disagree
Have you ever had a friend talk to you at length about a book, including telling you the basic plot & also about some of the more interesting stories & characters within, usually commenting on each person or event & telling you exactly how it made them feel or what they thought it meant, & then, after this moderately tolerable dialogue, smiling at you & saying, "Do you wanna read it?" How do you tell your friend that they did for the book what most movie trailers do for movies? Which is to say, ruined it for me.
My girlfriend regularly wears clothes without pockets (I am told this is a woman thing) & sometimes uses it as an excuses to bum money off of me. This doesn't bother me, as I like to pretend I can provide something to her, & I usually have more cash on hand than she does, but she almost never remembers, once she's taken, say, a twenty, to go buy ice or something, she never remembers to bring me the change. Here's my worry: if she has no pockets, where is my change?
I am now an avid flosser. This shouldn't surprise you. But there was a time - not very long ago, I will shamefully admit - that flossing seemed incorrect to me for one reason: I wasn't really convinced there ought to be spaces in between teeth. Hear me out. It struck me that perhaps our teeth should be close enough together that even a something threadlike couldn't get between them - & worse yet, that if you tried to get something between them, you'd crack the teeth. I can't think what disabused me of that notion. Oh, yeah. Regular flossing.
While listening to lots of Bill Hicks trying to find a bit he did about how pale he is (for this week's show, & no, I didn't find it on any of his recorded released stuff, so I suppose it's from a videotape or television special), I was struck by how little I laughed. I did think it was excruciatingly funny, but I've listened to the records so much that I don't laugh any more - I anticipate the humor. Much like the way when I listen to stuff that I've been listening to my entire life I now listen to the instruments more - say, the bass, if I've never paid any attention to it - I found myself listening to the audience. Sometimes you can even make out conversations. The reason I mention this is not only to segue to talking about this week's show but also to note that I don't have the same experience with comedy on television or film - Monty Python or Marx Brothers. Just recorded comedy.
Speaking of things you might not think are funny, the new show is being prepared this afternoon. Look for it tomorrow afternoon. Listen to it Sunday afternoon. Reflect on it Monday afternoon. Tell your friends about itTuesday afternoon. Call in sick to work so you can be drunk Wednesday afternoon. Who care what you do Thursday afternoon? I'll be recording another podcast next Friday afternoon. Let's continue in this vein. For ever.
My girlfriend regularly wears clothes without pockets (I am told this is a woman thing) & sometimes uses it as an excuses to bum money off of me. This doesn't bother me, as I like to pretend I can provide something to her, & I usually have more cash on hand than she does, but she almost never remembers, once she's taken, say, a twenty, to go buy ice or something, she never remembers to bring me the change. Here's my worry: if she has no pockets, where is my change?
I am now an avid flosser. This shouldn't surprise you. But there was a time - not very long ago, I will shamefully admit - that flossing seemed incorrect to me for one reason: I wasn't really convinced there ought to be spaces in between teeth. Hear me out. It struck me that perhaps our teeth should be close enough together that even a something threadlike couldn't get between them - & worse yet, that if you tried to get something between them, you'd crack the teeth. I can't think what disabused me of that notion. Oh, yeah. Regular flossing.
While listening to lots of Bill Hicks trying to find a bit he did about how pale he is (for this week's show, & no, I didn't find it on any of his recorded released stuff, so I suppose it's from a videotape or television special), I was struck by how little I laughed. I did think it was excruciatingly funny, but I've listened to the records so much that I don't laugh any more - I anticipate the humor. Much like the way when I listen to stuff that I've been listening to my entire life I now listen to the instruments more - say, the bass, if I've never paid any attention to it - I found myself listening to the audience. Sometimes you can even make out conversations. The reason I mention this is not only to segue to talking about this week's show but also to note that I don't have the same experience with comedy on television or film - Monty Python or Marx Brothers. Just recorded comedy.
Speaking of things you might not think are funny, the new show is being prepared this afternoon. Look for it tomorrow afternoon. Listen to it Sunday afternoon. Reflect on it Monday afternoon. Tell your friends about itTuesday afternoon. Call in sick to work so you can be drunk Wednesday afternoon. Who care what you do Thursday afternoon? I'll be recording another podcast next Friday afternoon. Let's continue in this vein. For ever.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
I'm Sometimes A Punk
Though I don't have a mohawk. Nor do I know any Mohawks. I might ask them if they like punk rock music.
I like a lot of it, but of course not all of it. Some of the stuff that I like that I think of as punk is probably not punk, & lots of the stuff that is thought of as punk I can't really stand. What sort of punk do I like? I'm glad I'm pretending that you ask.
You can have a listen to a mix I sort of made for my nephew's college graduation party (it's edited) last month here on the Self Help Radio Extra page. It's without any interruption & it's about seventy-four minutes long.
No mohawk required! From me to you! Now, if you're excuse me, I'm going to daydream & listen to Bill Moyers talk.
I like a lot of it, but of course not all of it. Some of the stuff that I like that I think of as punk is probably not punk, & lots of the stuff that is thought of as punk I can't really stand. What sort of punk do I like? I'm glad I'm pretending that you ask.
You can have a listen to a mix I sort of made for my nephew's college graduation party (it's edited) last month here on the Self Help Radio Extra page. It's without any interruption & it's about seventy-four minutes long.
No mohawk required! From me to you! Now, if you're excuse me, I'm going to daydream & listen to Bill Moyers talk.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Whither A Show About Paleness?
Is paleness even a word?
Ack! I am late for today's blog entry! I have no compelling explanations! I don't need to defend myself to you! You got more explaining to do than me! Judge not lest ye be judged!
Yeah, it's a weird idea, a show about a lack of color. I confess there aren't a lot of songs about that. There are more songs about pale things. So it'll mainly be a show about pale things, more than paleness. Sue me. It's just a podcast.
I myself am quite pale. Always have been. Some people's skin ripens like fruit in the sun & stays golden over the summer. I resort to a zombie-esque hue mere moments after non-sunburn exposure. Here's a funny story: I went to a dermatologist a while back to get a third eye removed (long story) & the dermatologist wanted to look at my back which, truth be told, is as white as vanilla ice cream. Not french vanilla - I'm talking soft serve vanilla. Anyway, she said, "You've got some sun damaged back here." She meant freckles. That's a bad way to talk about freckles. Freckles may be caused by sun damage, but it's evil to take something as adorable as freckles & make them seem evil. I won't have it.
Plus, she wouldn't remove the third eye. Referred me to an evil optometrist. Long story.
The experience of the pale is certainly one we shall explore. Or else I will say "Ack!" once more, & collapse on the floor.
Ack! I am late for today's blog entry! I have no compelling explanations! I don't need to defend myself to you! You got more explaining to do than me! Judge not lest ye be judged!
Yeah, it's a weird idea, a show about a lack of color. I confess there aren't a lot of songs about that. There are more songs about pale things. So it'll mainly be a show about pale things, more than paleness. Sue me. It's just a podcast.
I myself am quite pale. Always have been. Some people's skin ripens like fruit in the sun & stays golden over the summer. I resort to a zombie-esque hue mere moments after non-sunburn exposure. Here's a funny story: I went to a dermatologist a while back to get a third eye removed (long story) & the dermatologist wanted to look at my back which, truth be told, is as white as vanilla ice cream. Not french vanilla - I'm talking soft serve vanilla. Anyway, she said, "You've got some sun damaged back here." She meant freckles. That's a bad way to talk about freckles. Freckles may be caused by sun damage, but it's evil to take something as adorable as freckles & make them seem evil. I won't have it.
Plus, she wouldn't remove the third eye. Referred me to an evil optometrist. Long story.
The experience of the pale is certainly one we shall explore. Or else I will say "Ack!" once more, & collapse on the floor.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Preface To The Pale Show: Ode On A Plastic Spoon
Hey! Who put this ode on this plastic spoon? I was gonna use this spoon! Do you know how hard it is to get ode off a plastic spoon? Cleaners can melt the freakin' plastic! You! Yeah, you, with the beret! Are you the dirty dog poet who put this ode on my plastic spoon? What the fuck? Do I go over to your house & write a limerick on your butter knife? Hanh? Do I wander by your work & write a sestina on your spork? Oh Christ, look, you've got me rhyming now. Just get away from me! & don't mess with my non-biodegradable cutlery ever again!
This particular Self Help Radio blog entry was supposed to be enjoyed - prepared just for you - with a small cup of some sweet pale yogurt. The place was set & you were to come here, make yourself comfortable, & read an amusing preface to a show about a lack of color while eating something that not only lacks color, but also taste. All prepared for you by Self Help Radio. Because Self Help Radio wants to be hospitable.
Instead, some itinerant wannabe bard stops by, sees something that no sane person could possibly see in a plastic spoon sitting next to the yogurt, & just can't help WRITING AN ODE on the plastic spoon. That's all thirteen kinds of crazy! Hey! You should be ashamed of yourself!
What the...? Oh great. Well, the good news is, the ode is gone. The bad news is, so is the yogurt. Yes, the poet ate his ode with the food. He literally ate his own words. Har har. He thinks he's so clever.
Get out of here! I gotta blog to write! Stupid poets!
This particular Self Help Radio blog entry was supposed to be enjoyed - prepared just for you - with a small cup of some sweet pale yogurt. The place was set & you were to come here, make yourself comfortable, & read an amusing preface to a show about a lack of color while eating something that not only lacks color, but also taste. All prepared for you by Self Help Radio. Because Self Help Radio wants to be hospitable.
Instead, some itinerant wannabe bard stops by, sees something that no sane person could possibly see in a plastic spoon sitting next to the yogurt, & just can't help WRITING AN ODE on the plastic spoon. That's all thirteen kinds of crazy! Hey! You should be ashamed of yourself!
What the...? Oh great. Well, the good news is, the ode is gone. The bad news is, so is the yogurt. Yes, the poet ate his ode with the food. He literally ate his own words. Har har. He thinks he's so clever.
Get out of here! I gotta blog to write! Stupid poets!
Monday, June 09, 2008
Braise, Whimper & Fold
One more story about Bill before too long:
Bill never met a musical instrument he didn't want to put his mouth on. He could play them all tolerably well, if your definition of "tolerable" is the same definition John Ashcroft uses for testicular electrocution at Gitmo. Man I hated when he picked up an oboe - for example - & just started tooting on it. You did not want to go to any sort of store with him, nor church, but that was because he loved Satan.
How I found myself in a dried goods store last weekend I am not sure. I didn't even know there were such entities as "dried goods stores" outside of those infernal Hobbit books. Blast them! Yet there Bill & I stood, chewing on gunpowder & talking about tamarind when, out of nowhere he said, "I hear someone calling my name!"
You have to have regular responses to Bill, otherwise you won't make much sense, but my regular response to him was to the exclamation, "I hear [Jesus/God/The Virgin Mary/Albert Einstein] calling my name!" I had never heard him be vague. I listened, too. I heard it!
"Songs about me!" said Bill. It was true. The lunatic dried good store owner with the painted-on hard-on was playing songs about Bill. Bill was apoplectic. He accused the shopkeeper of adding cayenne pepper to the no-MSG sugar cane. But I told him, "Bill, that fellow isn't playing songs about you. He's listening to a radio show playing songs about you!"
It was true! The man behind the counter had gone to selfhelpradio.net & downloaded this week's show. Bill was astonished. He couldn't leave. He didn't leave.
For all I know, he's there still.
Bill never met a musical instrument he didn't want to put his mouth on. He could play them all tolerably well, if your definition of "tolerable" is the same definition John Ashcroft uses for testicular electrocution at Gitmo. Man I hated when he picked up an oboe - for example - & just started tooting on it. You did not want to go to any sort of store with him, nor church, but that was because he loved Satan.
How I found myself in a dried goods store last weekend I am not sure. I didn't even know there were such entities as "dried goods stores" outside of those infernal Hobbit books. Blast them! Yet there Bill & I stood, chewing on gunpowder & talking about tamarind when, out of nowhere he said, "I hear someone calling my name!"
You have to have regular responses to Bill, otherwise you won't make much sense, but my regular response to him was to the exclamation, "I hear [Jesus/God/The Virgin Mary/Albert Einstein] calling my name!" I had never heard him be vague. I listened, too. I heard it!
"Songs about me!" said Bill. It was true. The lunatic dried good store owner with the painted-on hard-on was playing songs about Bill. Bill was apoplectic. He accused the shopkeeper of adding cayenne pepper to the no-MSG sugar cane. But I told him, "Bill, that fellow isn't playing songs about you. He's listening to a radio show playing songs about you!"
It was true! The man behind the counter had gone to selfhelpradio.net & downloaded this week's show. Bill was astonished. He couldn't leave. He didn't leave.
For all I know, he's there still.
Friday, June 06, 2008
Make This Blog Your Only Best Blog!
Now I know for a fact that literally a couple or more people read the Self Help Radio blog with awesome regularity. (Far more than listen to my podcasts!) (Hey, could my blog readers think the podcast is simply me reading the blog? Well, it's not!) But I would love if maybe thousands more would read it. (I'd love it more, though, if thousands listened to Self Help Radio. That's problematic, though - the show really isn't all that good.)
I absorbed with interest the Wired article Secrets of the 7 Basic Blog Posts & realized that I fail on most accounts. I hereby promise to follow these secrets until at least ten people read this blog every day. Then I'll really pump up the volume.
Here, in case you don't want to read the linked article above, is a summary of the seven points:
1. Be upset!
It's really hard to be so angry when I'm mainly confused. I'll try, though. Oh! That Hillary!
Does that work? Hanh?
2. Buy a thing!
I encourage you to buy into my dreams of independent media. But you can't find that in stores. Rats. Maybe I should try to find something to support - maybe a website to help me & my friends after all the Christians disappear?
3. Animals are cute!
Right. I must stop posting pictures of animals that have recently died.
4. People are dumb!
Right. That's why they're not listening to Self Help Radio.
5. Something I like, only different!
Oh, I got this down. That's what Self Help Radio is!
6. Weird science!
Wouldn't you rather see a sunset on Mars? I thought so.
7. Me, the blogger!
Whew, I got this one cold.
In any event, I promise to remember you all when I get too big for the blogsosphere & have to get ghost writers to write these posts. Let's circle our wagons now & enjoy our own intimate relationship before it gets ruined by the paparazzi & Entertainment Tonight.
Your task: tomorrow, in the afternoon, visit selfhelpradio.net & listen to a show about people named Bill. You do NOT have to be named Bill, or William, or Billy, or Will, etc., to enjoy the show. But you'll like it more. I betcha.
I absorbed with interest the Wired article Secrets of the 7 Basic Blog Posts & realized that I fail on most accounts. I hereby promise to follow these secrets until at least ten people read this blog every day. Then I'll really pump up the volume.
Here, in case you don't want to read the linked article above, is a summary of the seven points:
1. Be upset!
It's really hard to be so angry when I'm mainly confused. I'll try, though. Oh! That Hillary!
Does that work? Hanh?
2. Buy a thing!
I encourage you to buy into my dreams of independent media. But you can't find that in stores. Rats. Maybe I should try to find something to support - maybe a website to help me & my friends after all the Christians disappear?
3. Animals are cute!
Right. I must stop posting pictures of animals that have recently died.
4. People are dumb!
Right. That's why they're not listening to Self Help Radio.
5. Something I like, only different!
Oh, I got this down. That's what Self Help Radio is!
6. Weird science!
Wouldn't you rather see a sunset on Mars? I thought so.
7. Me, the blogger!
Whew, I got this one cold.
In any event, I promise to remember you all when I get too big for the blogsosphere & have to get ghost writers to write these posts. Let's circle our wagons now & enjoy our own intimate relationship before it gets ruined by the paparazzi & Entertainment Tonight.
Your task: tomorrow, in the afternoon, visit selfhelpradio.net & listen to a show about people named Bill. You do NOT have to be named Bill, or William, or Billy, or Will, etc., to enjoy the show. But you'll like it more. I betcha.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Yet Lagged
Our cheap little motel room in Durham sat right above the window where late-night guests (who talk loud because they're talking to hotel clerks behind a plexiglass divider, despite the fact that they could be heard all through the whole motor court) got rooms - or didn't get rooms, as the case may be. One fellow walked back & forth to his car muttering about "eight lousy bucks" until he finally relented (paying with a credit card!), & another yelled on a cell phone about the cost then walked over to another nearby motel, as if the person on the other line was William Shatner trying to get him a better deal. I heard all this over the weird watery gurgle of the air conditioner because I am prone to listen to the night as I sleep.
I went out last night to find the late-night clerk playing with a radio-operated car in the parking lot, & that same fellow freaked me out when we were coming home that evening because he was apparently escorting some visitor to a room a few doors down from ours. They went in, they came out, the visitor went away. You bet I thought it was drugs!
But Magda & I drove through the blackness of the Durham highway to the airport at four this morning &, a little over fourteen hours later, I am back at home in my lovely little house feeling it had been nothing more than a dream. A dream with trees. During the three days we were in Durham, I struggled to get some sense of where everything was - you know that weird feeling when you see a street that you know you were on some part of, but it seems to you that this one is perpendicular to the one you were on earlier - I consulted a map afterwards to show up my failed human sensors - & I wonder now if it'll come back to me when next I'm there. Durham is rather small, you know. & in a forest. Forests are made to be lost in.
Big decisions were made there but I woke up from a nap just now & want to return to some more sleeping while my dogs & cats are still a little sluggish from sleep too. Plus there's a storm brewing! I'm sure I'll talk more about things of overdramatic import at another time. I have a postscript for this which ties it to this week's Self Help Radio: the night clerk? His name was Billy!*
* I don't really know if this is true. But it seemed a nice ending for an otherwise meaningless ramble.
I went out last night to find the late-night clerk playing with a radio-operated car in the parking lot, & that same fellow freaked me out when we were coming home that evening because he was apparently escorting some visitor to a room a few doors down from ours. They went in, they came out, the visitor went away. You bet I thought it was drugs!
But Magda & I drove through the blackness of the Durham highway to the airport at four this morning &, a little over fourteen hours later, I am back at home in my lovely little house feeling it had been nothing more than a dream. A dream with trees. During the three days we were in Durham, I struggled to get some sense of where everything was - you know that weird feeling when you see a street that you know you were on some part of, but it seems to you that this one is perpendicular to the one you were on earlier - I consulted a map afterwards to show up my failed human sensors - & I wonder now if it'll come back to me when next I'm there. Durham is rather small, you know. & in a forest. Forests are made to be lost in.
Big decisions were made there but I woke up from a nap just now & want to return to some more sleeping while my dogs & cats are still a little sluggish from sleep too. Plus there's a storm brewing! I'm sure I'll talk more about things of overdramatic import at another time. I have a postscript for this which ties it to this week's Self Help Radio: the night clerk? His name was Billy!*
* I don't really know if this is true. But it seemed a nice ending for an otherwise meaningless ramble.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Whither Bill?
Dispatch from Durham:
My friend Bill (or Billy, when he's drunk; or William, when he's in court; or Wilhelm, when he's drunk in court in Germany; but never Will) doesn't really exist. He is a fingerprint of my imagination. He lives on the peripheries, on the side of our mind where nothing is ever put straight, as the poet said. Yet he is insistent! & much like the monkeys that paint the clothes that we wear when the weather is about to get worse, I can't not listen to it. Not even with ear muffs & cotton candy breath.
Did you know you can buy fireworks in supermarkets in Durham? I don't know if they're good fireworks, but I can find out. I don't believe they'll let me take them home, though. "They" meaning "supermarkets in Durham."
Bill doesn't believe in fireworks that aren't generated by romance. Nor Hollywood. Nor his latest Hollywood romance. But he does understand that he possesses a naive curiosity which, as the poet says, forces two strangers to talk, & so he would like to be forced to talk to the weird people who, he believes because I told him, have written songs about him. I said I would gather them. I would buy some new shoes. I would gather the songs around the shoes. & I would let him in!
Did you know it's not legal to fire fireworks off outside the door to your second story motel room at the so-called traffic on I-85? Some nice police officers gave me a stern talking-to. They're very butch in North Carolina.
Bill is nearly always sober. Me not so much. Self Help Radio is a very serious thing & it helps out all manner of folks, especially, this week, those called "Bill." I hope my friend Bill, even though he does not exist, can appreciate that.
I hope you, even though you probably don't exist, can understand that.
My friend Bill (or Billy, when he's drunk; or William, when he's in court; or Wilhelm, when he's drunk in court in Germany; but never Will) doesn't really exist. He is a fingerprint of my imagination. He lives on the peripheries, on the side of our mind where nothing is ever put straight, as the poet said. Yet he is insistent! & much like the monkeys that paint the clothes that we wear when the weather is about to get worse, I can't not listen to it. Not even with ear muffs & cotton candy breath.
Did you know you can buy fireworks in supermarkets in Durham? I don't know if they're good fireworks, but I can find out. I don't believe they'll let me take them home, though. "They" meaning "supermarkets in Durham."
Bill doesn't believe in fireworks that aren't generated by romance. Nor Hollywood. Nor his latest Hollywood romance. But he does understand that he possesses a naive curiosity which, as the poet says, forces two strangers to talk, & so he would like to be forced to talk to the weird people who, he believes because I told him, have written songs about him. I said I would gather them. I would buy some new shoes. I would gather the songs around the shoes. & I would let him in!
Did you know it's not legal to fire fireworks off outside the door to your second story motel room at the so-called traffic on I-85? Some nice police officers gave me a stern talking-to. They're very butch in North Carolina.
Bill is nearly always sober. Me not so much. Self Help Radio is a very serious thing & it helps out all manner of folks, especially, this week, those called "Bill." I hope my friend Bill, even though he does not exist, can appreciate that.
I hope you, even though you probably don't exist, can understand that.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Preface To Bill: What? No blog today?
Yeah, been hanging out in Durham all day, with lemurs mostly, & nowhere near a computer. Sorry. Maybe more tomorrow?
Also, I didn't meet one person named Bill today.
Also, I didn't meet one person named Bill today.
Monday, June 02, 2008
& Then There's North Carolina...
Yes, sports fans, I'll be spending three of the seven days of this week - or is it four? - I think the fourth will be spent getting through airports - in the area of North Carolina where I'll be living in two short months. So the posts may be shorter, though no pithier, & certainly not any more interesting than normal. But if I take pictures of anything astonishing, I might just share them with you.
No, it's early but it's still Monday so I must be the first to tell you that this past week's podcast, appropriately or inappropriately about beauty pageants, is now available where you always knew it would be at selfhelpradio.net. It features ninety minutes of songs, discussion, facts & lies about contests for beauty. How could you not want to listen to it? Oh come on!
Maybe you'll hear from me sooner than later - but if not, look for me in the "triangle" area of North Carolina. I'm sure you'll know me by sight. I'll be the one who is embarrassed saying the name "Carrboro."
Also, this week's show is about people named Bill. William. Billy. Wilhelm. Willy. Etc. So if you want to tell me a story about your favorite Bill, send me an email & I'll dedicate a song to them. You can encourage those haters who don't listen to Self Help Radio to write in, too. Because! The show will not just be about a particular Bill. It's about all Bills. Whomever they may be. It's true!
No, it's early but it's still Monday so I must be the first to tell you that this past week's podcast, appropriately or inappropriately about beauty pageants, is now available where you always knew it would be at selfhelpradio.net. It features ninety minutes of songs, discussion, facts & lies about contests for beauty. How could you not want to listen to it? Oh come on!
Maybe you'll hear from me sooner than later - but if not, look for me in the "triangle" area of North Carolina. I'm sure you'll know me by sight. I'll be the one who is embarrassed saying the name "Carrboro."
Also, this week's show is about people named Bill. William. Billy. Wilhelm. Willy. Etc. So if you want to tell me a story about your favorite Bill, send me an email & I'll dedicate a song to them. You can encourage those haters who don't listen to Self Help Radio to write in, too. Because! The show will not just be about a particular Bill. It's about all Bills. Whomever they may be. It's true!
Friday, May 30, 2008
The Last Repetitive Stress Injury Ever
I am proud at the beginning of this 2008-2009 pageant season to announce that, despite comments from critics calling it "sexist," "degrading," "unappealing" & "imaginary," Miss Self Help Radio 2009 is accepting entries! Yes, before I & the show depart for the comforting wilds of Durham, North Carolina, we'll have one last Miss Self Help Radio pageant in Austin, Texas.
Rules are the same as always: contestants must have listened to at least ten (10) Self Help Radio shows during the previous year. Packets for each show will be handed out. A score of 60% or better will need to be achieved or the contestant is liable to be condescended to. Contestants must also be of the relatively female persuasion or otherwise not object to being called "Miss." The entry fee will be waived for most everyone who makes a fuss. No one under eighteen is allowed to enter, & don't blame me, blame the sponsors of the Junior Miss Self Help Radio contest, who refused to let me drink while I was judging. Christ! It's not like I was giving it to the kids!
More details on the contest can be found on tomorrow's podcast of Self Help Radio, available some time in the mid-afternoon at selfhelpradio.net. Do listen for lots of songs about beauty pageants & their contestants as well as an interview with someone who knows more than I do about less than it seems.
The Miss Self Help Radio Pageant is sponsored, as always, by Bloat. Bloat, since 1972, America's original & only.
Rules are the same as always: contestants must have listened to at least ten (10) Self Help Radio shows during the previous year. Packets for each show will be handed out. A score of 60% or better will need to be achieved or the contestant is liable to be condescended to. Contestants must also be of the relatively female persuasion or otherwise not object to being called "Miss." The entry fee will be waived for most everyone who makes a fuss. No one under eighteen is allowed to enter, & don't blame me, blame the sponsors of the Junior Miss Self Help Radio contest, who refused to let me drink while I was judging. Christ! It's not like I was giving it to the kids!
More details on the contest can be found on tomorrow's podcast of Self Help Radio, available some time in the mid-afternoon at selfhelpradio.net. Do listen for lots of songs about beauty pageants & their contestants as well as an interview with someone who knows more than I do about less than it seems.
The Miss Self Help Radio Pageant is sponsored, as always, by Bloat. Bloat, since 1972, America's original & only.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
At The End Of May, A Mix Is Born
Hey! That's right! I managed despite my grief to put together a mix for you what I call "Self Help Radio Extra"! You can find it for downloading on the Self Help Radio Extra page. Where it always is. Once a month.
I'll try to make the next one in a more timely fashion. I am a bit of a procrastinator. Once a month shouldn't mean "at the end of every month." Perhaps I should do two a month. It would keep me on my toes.
You can see what's on this uninterrupted seventy-six minute mix (suitable for burning onto a CD & then crushing under a stiletto heel) by visiting the Self Help Radio Extra page. Do have a listen. I enjoy the putting together of music, although I fear I am not very good at it.
Have fun!
I'll try to make the next one in a more timely fashion. I am a bit of a procrastinator. Once a month shouldn't mean "at the end of every month." Perhaps I should do two a month. It would keep me on my toes.
You can see what's on this uninterrupted seventy-six minute mix (suitable for burning onto a CD & then crushing under a stiletto heel) by visiting the Self Help Radio Extra page. Do have a listen. I enjoy the putting together of music, although I fear I am not very good at it.
Have fun!
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Whither Beauty Pageants?
Confession time: I've never sat through any televised (or live) beauty pageant, & that includes ones that I might have been present for. I have seen a few movies about them - "Little Miss Sunshine" probably being the best - how many movies have been made about them, you might wonder - well, here's a list - but in general, I haven't had a whole lot of interest in what seemed a weirdly staged - lots of standing around for the "contestants" - & mostly formal exercise in shallowness.
I probably conceived of the notion of the show around the time the video for the Miss Teen USA pageant started making the rounds - you know, this one - because it most likely started a process in my brain that could have gone something like this:
1) This is sad. She's nervous but she's also kinda stupid.
2) It's also sad that people think this is funny.
3) I guess people think it's funny because they probably hate the idea of a competition for "the prettiest."
4) It's natural to want to think the most generically beautiful people are the dumbest.
5) That sure is a big stage she's standing on.
6) If it's Miss Teen USA, does that mean there are fifty contestants?
7) Maybe more, with Guam & Puerto Rico & Iraq & all our other provinces?
8) This is a weird idea.
9) I bet beauty contests started in America.
10) Do you think there are a lot of songs about beauty contests?
That all happened within a few seconds, most likely while I was drunk, & I probably created a folder on my computer & noticed it some time later. Because chances are I put the folder not in the place where I keep show ideas (that would be a folder called "show_ideas"), but in something completely irrelevant, like "taxes" or "embarrassing photographs of monkeys" or "recipes that are mainly excuses for eating lots of cheese."
Now the chickens have come home to roost. But they are beauty chickens.
I probably conceived of the notion of the show around the time the video for the Miss Teen USA pageant started making the rounds - you know, this one - because it most likely started a process in my brain that could have gone something like this:
1) This is sad. She's nervous but she's also kinda stupid.
2) It's also sad that people think this is funny.
3) I guess people think it's funny because they probably hate the idea of a competition for "the prettiest."
4) It's natural to want to think the most generically beautiful people are the dumbest.
5) That sure is a big stage she's standing on.
6) If it's Miss Teen USA, does that mean there are fifty contestants?
7) Maybe more, with Guam & Puerto Rico & Iraq & all our other provinces?
8) This is a weird idea.
9) I bet beauty contests started in America.
10) Do you think there are a lot of songs about beauty contests?
That all happened within a few seconds, most likely while I was drunk, & I probably created a folder on my computer & noticed it some time later. Because chances are I put the folder not in the place where I keep show ideas (that would be a folder called "show_ideas"), but in something completely irrelevant, like "taxes" or "embarrassing photographs of monkeys" or "recipes that are mainly excuses for eating lots of cheese."
Now the chickens have come home to roost. But they are beauty chickens.