Preface To Halloween 2008: Scary!

There's nothing to write about because I'm not afraid of nothing. Well, maybe bugs & maybe public restrooms & maybe the next presidential election. But other than that, nothing!

What's the point, anyway? Why do you wanna scare me? Why do you wanna be scared? Why not ride a roller coaster, then? Or rent a movie where a slasher picks off cute teenage chicks one by one. Why does a radio show have to scare you?

Because it's a fearless radio show, is Self Help Radio! Scared of no one & nothing. Except maybe mean people writing in the guestbook. & the RIAA. But certainly not scared of being completely ignored! I've proved that!

Fine, we'll have a scary Halloween show. We'll have it about witches or something. Witches are scary! I mean, they're also history's saddest scapegoats, & of course they were murdered for centuries by ignorant folk scared of outside ideas & women in general. Scary!

It's the best I can do, man. Because nothing scares me, I got no idea what'll scare you.

& a Halloween show about public restrooms is way too fucking scary for me.

Notions Of Right & Wrong & Good & Evil

Oh boy! I'm watching another video by Sam Harris! He's not a musician, but, to me, he's a rock star. So I'll be watching him talk about the brain & morality, but you don't have to.

Instead, go listen to the Self Help Radio sixth anniversary special. If you haven't already. If you have, you can listen to again, but listen to it underneath a lecture by Sam Harris. It's about .3 times the celebration.

I never get to go to conferences like that one, by the way. My most recent conference, actually, was sponsored by the Tidy Office Workers' Association, where the most gripping talk was Advanced Floor Wax: Questions About Application & Longevity. But it was better than the Lint Fair. I was sent there not only because I am the department's greatest source of lint, but also because I was being punished for being less fabulous than the rest of the people invited to the Lint Fair. That hurt.

Sam Harris is talking now. Ssshhh.

Down With The Site!

Yes, selfhelpradio.net was down for a little while. My host was doing some server mojo. It's back now. You can listen to the anniversary show on this lovely Sunday afternoon in peace now.

Thank you to those who noticed & wrote to me!

Appy Hanniversary

Six year doing this. & still with only one pair of pants.

That doesn't mean I have only spent six years in radio - I been doing this since 1994, when I was either 6 years old, or 60 years old, depending on what will get me more respect. (There is no in-between. Sorry.) (I learned that from William Shatner. Sorry.) It just means six long years of Self Help Radio.

Wait. Is it six? What if it's actually seven? What if it's actually five?

I'm terrible at anniversaries, of course, so the Broken Show is an update - a remake, if you will - of the Broken Show which aired originally October 23, 2002. On a Wednesday. In the afternoon. With a haze in the air that made me think of Pasadena slightly melting.

Pasadena melting? That happens all the time! The sixth anniversary of this Self Help Radio show will only happen once, if I can help it. Visit the SHR website tomorrow in the afternoon to hear this show. You can bring all the booze you want. You'll need it!

Six years old! Now I have to find a good school for my young show. Why did I home-school pre-school? I don't want this show in public schools!

The Blooz

Hey! I was listening to the radio yesterday morning & my former high school Hall Monitor chum & current Secretary of State of the Imaginary Anarchistic Republic Of The Moon, Dick Dickenbock, was subbing for KVRX's show Blues At Sunrise! So I've asked him if I can archive it on the Self Help Radio site, & after trying to convince him that I did in fact know him & was not working for a "Mr. Bookie" looking for cash, he said, "Whatever."

Thusly! I recorded it & saved it anyway, so if you'd like to listen to Mr. Dickenbock explore the "roots of Texas blues," you can listen to the show over at selfhelpradio.net. If it doesn't give you the blues, I don't know what will.

Thanks, Dick! Can I have my lunch money back now?

Whither A Broken Anniversary?

Lo, there comes contradiction & coincidence, confluence & consternation, as Self Help Radio proudly beams from its mountaintop aerie, & says unto all true believers, & also to those who are untrue, for truly shall they be in earshot, the one, the only Self Help Radio doth proclaim, "Yea & it is given unto us all a sixth anniversary show!"

"Tell us, o radio show," cries the listeners, "what shall we do to celebrate a radio show which, if it were a human, would still not be able to read & might also wetteth thy thou radio show bed?"

Self Help Radio begins to answer.

"Also," says the listeners, "as radio shows go, it is truly spake that Self Help Radio was either breast-fed too long or perhaps was weaned too early. As radio shows go, it is verily mentally & intellectually retarded."

"Enough!" cried the haughty anniversary-having Self Help Radio. "Be it decreed with great speed like a weed gone to seed in the greed of the deed: we shall celebrate our anniversary by revisiting an old theme, especially one that we can do better the second time around. So mote it be, so shall it be done!"

A clap of thunder! A claptrap of thunder! People wearing necklaces to hide their disfigured necks! Camera phones taking weird photos of animals doing things they ought not! A puff of smoke, a weeping willow running out of kleenex!

& lo in October 2008, the sixth anniversary wast thereby performed, & the revisited theme was revisited & reviews were as always mixed & yea, the children of the children of the children who first turned away from Self Help Radio said unto the gathered townsfolk, "What shall we burn tonight?"

& Self Help Radio saw it, & saw that it was good.

Preface To The Broken Anniversary Show: Happy 500th Self Help Radio Blog Post!

You got it! 500 posts & I'm still not out of words! Take that, my third grade elementary school teacher who thought I was stupid for stapling my pants to the bicker rug!

I want to celebrate this ridiculously arbitrary moment by offering you something. You can claim it by doing the following: send an email to this email address (dickenbock at gmail dot com) with an address to which you'd like me to send you stuff. What will I send you?

I will send you the Self Help Radio Self Help Love Yourself Self Pack! It will include (probably) a Self Help Radio tee-shirt, a Self Help CD, some miracle sand I got in the Holy Land (or is that for my religious show?) & other stuff. Just send me an email that says "Happy Anniversary!" & that's it. It's my way of saying, "Just like my birthday, I have to buy other people stuff to celebrate my anniversary."

Yay 500th post! Yay anniversaries! Yay anything else you can think of!

Haunted By Fritos

Eep! As I sit in my office writing this, one of the students who works for me is eating Fritos, by which I mean the corn chips, & not the general line of snack products by Frito-Lay, which, I might add, is a Texas-based business, for which Texans show great gratitude to the corporation by being proudly morbidly obese.

The scent of Fritos takes my mind back to days of elementary school when other kids - not I, alas, as I was too poor to afford the twenty-five cent lunch at the time - got excited over "Frito Pie," which is basically chili poured over Fritos with melted cheese-like plastic on top. I've always wanted to make a vegetarian version, now that I think about it, but the memories of poor-kid envy of lower-middle-class luxury, coupled with the fact that I am currently identifying the smell as "greasy" - if that's possible - is kind of turning my stomach - like those weird christian dancers on the Soup the other day.

This is really apropos nothing at all, except to let you know I'm thinking of you & two important things:

1) Last week's episode of Self Help Radio is available for your listening pleasure. Click the link. What a show you'll hear!

2) Tomorrow is the legendary 500th entry of this blog. Visit & win! What will you win? I don't know! Because it won't be a contest! It'll be something else!

Bringing Brazilian Ideas Home

Get this: in Brazil, according to a Telegraph article, "politicians often adopt unusual names at election time. Candidates are allowed to either register in their own name or a chosen one. Many use their long-held nicknames but some adopt outlandish identities to grab attention." That's why there's at least six people running in municipal elections with the name "Barack Obama." But some of the other names are much, much better. To wit:

Cattle Ana, Elephant Without A Tail, Big Charlie Knives, Jorge Bushi (guaranteed to lose), DJ Saddam (playing music that you must dance to or die), John, Chico & Luis Bin Laden ( the likable members of the Bin Laden family), & my three favorites, who'd surely get my vote unless they were running against one another & then, unlike in the United States, I'd have a really hard time deciding whom to vote for: King of the Cuckolds, Kung Fu Fatty & The Second King of Prawns. (Okay, I'd vote for Kung Fu Fatty. But only if he'd make sure to appoint Hong Kong Phooey Secretary of Defense.)

In that spirit, I'd like to encourage the current US Presidential candidates to adopt nicknames for the polls. I'll help. For McCain, "Cranky McOldstein" would be appropriate, while for Obama, what about "Smarty McHopey-Hope"? The Vice-President candidates could be "Professor Squinty Hairplants" (Biden) & just plain "Unqualified" (you know who). I encourage you to write all the candidates to bring this delightful notion to the states. Heaven knows we could use a good laugh right about now.

& speaking of something that could use some humor injected in it, Self Help Radio is new tomorrow afternoon. Do visit & listen. It doesn't deserve a nickname. It's not running for anything.

The Self Help Radio Email Archive Project: Submission Two

This is one of my favorite ever emails written to someone I was vaguely interested in but who didn't want to flirt back. We actually stayed cordial, since she had something of a sense of humor, but this email seemed to end our email correspondence. It's called "Hortense Cauliflower - a novel" & it was written over twelve years ago.

How good to hear from your skanky self. I am as always madly in love with life & very happy. The tests came back negative, thank god - I really am going to have to start using protection, especially if he isn't going to. Wink wink. I have no plans & I am sadly out of whack. What will death be like? What will breasts be like? When one walks carefully down the Rue de la Huchette, one must (as always) keep an eye on the little ones. Oh love, how rare to hear your voice in this sticky dry lonely summer. I am as always madly in love with life & very happy. The girlfriend says hi. The boyfriend is sullen. Did I tell you I dreamt about having sex with you? We seemed to be having fun, but of course I was being needy & you were doing a "friend" a "favor." People pop in & out of life, but nothing sticks. I need more sticky stuff to stick nonstick stuff on my not-so-sticky wall. We still haven't found out where the leak comes from; perhaps the cat is sneakier than we originally gave him credit for. The bigger the car, the larger the load. Name one promise you've kept, just one, & I will buy you a bag of cookies. If you break the promise later, I will have to take the cookies back. I am as always madly in love with life & very happy. Have you seen "Trainspotting"? Wouldn't you rather drink a whole lot with me on my living room floor & even cry a little. How your make-up would run! And I'd try to catch it, of course, every little drop preciouser & preciouser. If only I were someone's type. I can be someone's type sixty words a minute. That's a word a second, slower than I normally talk. Shall we summer in the Chateau or winter in the golf cart? Ah lady, loveliness like yours can't be bought, it can't be cultivated, it can't even be dreamed about unless you're next to the dreamer... I wish I could, like e e cummings said, keep your heart in my heart, but mine, I fear, is too small, & getting smaller every day. I am as always madly in love with life & very happy. Remind me to tell you funny stories about natural selection. Make a plan, invite me along. Would it flatter you if I told you that I am in love with a woman who looks just like you? Have you heard the latest Scary Girlfriend Jokes? Do strangers approach you with flowers & mints? I will attempt to attempt you again, & again, & again. You were thought about in your absence, if not missed. What can you expect? I am often more self-absorbed than is legally required. I am as always madly in love with life & very happy. Ha ha ha!

Is there anything more to say here? My seduction skills sucked.

P.S. At the time, I didn't know there really was a Rue de la Huchette. I thought it was nonsense in my brain. But two years ago I had awesome falafel on the Rue de la Huchette. There were hardly any children there at all.

Whither What A Show!?

By this point in our walk together, there are three things which inevitably you can say about Self Help Radio, &, therefore, by extension, this video of a herding pig, which are these:

1) No one knows what's going on or what's any of it's supposed to mean.
2) No one knows why anyone would bother with this sort of thing week after week.
3) No one is paying attention anyway.

Frequently, in my travels & travails from bus stop to work, from bar to gutter, & from hospital room to jail cell, I encounter a special soul who wants to speak glowingly about this or that, who has no idea who I am (which is good, as I've just picked their pocket & later will puke on their shoes), but seems to "know something" about radio. Nothing they say that they appreciate about their favorite radio shows resembles or otherwise parallels Self Help Radio. & I take away this thought: Will I ever eat food prepared in a kitchen again, & not heated by the sun shining on a dumpster? Also, I think, does this mean Self Help Radio is a singular, original show, or that it's probably one of the worst ideas ever, painfully & senselessly undertaken by a deluded fool?

I can't answer that, as I am deluded fool notorious for my awful ideas. Here's one of them: a selection of songs based on the phrase "what a [insert noun]!" What a great idea! What a stupid idea! What? A regular Self Help Radio type show? What a maroon!

Preface To What A Show!: Detox Report

Look at this - I'm all sweaty, I've wet myself again, my eyes won't focus, I'm trembling, I can't keep food down, I can barely stand up - God damn it I'm addicted to something again! & I'm such a dumb fuck that I never remember what I'm addicted to until I start going through withdrawal.

Well. This is a fine how d'you do! Does this ever happen to you? Or are you a stronger person than I am? Fair enough. I'm a middle-aged man (although, of course, if I go on this way, I might be closer to the end of my life than the middle) & I really shouldn't be experimenting with drugs the way I do. & my friend's pharmaceuticals - I know they're not for me. I just can't help it. & I eat too much. & I'm with John McCain here - gambling's fucking addictive! But so much fun!

& you know, you turn around, something else is addictive - food, sex, self-mutilation, sadism, science fiction, pornography, the Catholic Church - so what the fuck? Am I supposed to live a removed, simple existence, or can I become addicted to solitude & contemplation as well? Wait. Can solitude & contemplation get you high? Big ups to my Buddhist homies!

Look, I've started puking bile & what looks like partially digested pennies. I must've had a crazy night. I'm not sure what it is I've become addicted to this time, but I'm sure off it now, because my body is rattling me like an epileptic in a bumper car. Whatever it is, though, I promise: I'll let you know.

Finding A Nice Home For Your Stray

Did your open heart cause your stray to want to stay? How do you close your heart? Will it involve Swedish Death Metal? Not at all, says experts at the Whimpering Plains Pet Asylum, located in beautiful Katemcy, Texas, somewhere in one of the scattered dwellings so lushly described in the Handbook of Texas Online. Says founder Andrew Cootsburgstein, "Why the hell would you want to say we're in Katemcy? No one's ever fucking heard of Katemcy!"

This fictional & oftentimes literally made-up Asylum can take whatever pet you throw at it, although pets being carried in must use the front door. Since Katemcy, Texas, is full of people who either haven't yet realized they're living in a hell-hole called Katemcy, Texas, or, worse yet, like it there, the Asylum plans to have the stray pets overtake the town in population a hundredfold. Cootsburgstein says, "Even if I wanted to have a place for unwanted strays to stay - which I think is a neat idea though I can't imagine there being a lot of money for it - it would make no sense to put it in an out-of-the-way village where even basic cable is a crazy dream." Adds Cootsburgstein, "I mean, come on!"

The Whimpering Plains Pet Asylum is a proud sponsor of Self Help Radio, & lets Self Help Radio staff come there to roll around with the happy animals, shares treats with them, & occasionally steps in the poo which is, frankly, ankle-deep in some places. Cootburgstein admits that the animals have not yet taken enough pride in the place to pick up after themselves: "I think I drove through Katemcy once, but I was changing CDs in the car at the time, so I looked down for half a second & missed it. Seriously, if you're going to make me head of some dumb-ass delusion, please put it somewhere significant, like Mason a few miles south. That's a motherfucking town!"

Self Help Radio dedicates last week's show featuring songs about being "too late" to the fine people who we wish existed to staff the place we wish existed at the Whimpering Plains Pet Asylum. We appreciate you!

The Gathering Storm

Hey! Did you know that I am a mere seven posts away from my 500th - yes, that's FIVE HUNDREDTH - post on this silly blog? I feel like I should do something special. & by something special, I don't mean a nostalgiac look back at previous anniversary posts. We can do that now:

from post 100 (March 7, 2007):

Welcome to the 100th post of my Self Help Radio blog! It's such a special occasion I've made this entire entry out of cheese. [...]

Hooray! 100 posts! Someone get me a cheese shredder & we can eat!

from post 200 (August 13, 2007):

So, let me formally apologize for this disappointing 200th post & let's move on to more or less the same sort of thing for the next one hundred. Oh boy! One hundred more posts! Who would've thought? Etc., etc.

from post 300 (January 9, 2008):

This is my THREE HUNDREDTH post on this blog. Has anyone (you know, beside James Joyce) ever used some many letters of the alphabet to say so little? Why can't academics use my blog to support their careers? It just seems sad.

from post 400 (the saddest one, May 26, 2008):

It's Memorial Day & this is also blog entry four hundred, & it certainly wasn't planned, but I am glad I have a place & time to honor Buster with some small remembrances.

I think I was so disappointed by the disappointment that was the disappointing two-hundredth post that I have downplayed the anniversary aspect since then. But no more! Let's celebrate!

So it'll probably happen week after next - what do you want to celebrate with? Shall I send you something in the mail? Do you want to have your picture taken with my dogs? Can I write you a poem or teach you braille? You must let me know. Let me know!

& of course it's not too late to plan to listen to Self Help Radio this weekend, the theme of which is "too late!" Tomorrow afternoon. Be there or be... too late!

The Self Help Radio Email Archive Project: Submission One

It's well known among those who know me well that I suffered (& therefore so did they) for a lot of my young adult life with a sort of depression. I was never diagnosed, & I worked through it in a way that I know many folks wouldn't be able to, but the depression & the recovery did lead me to alienate lots of sweet folks in ways that I regret now but, through the rosy lens of time, which tells me you can't go home again so why not laugh at the stumbling it took to get you away from there, I can wince & make fun of my past, & now, so can you!

Presenting the Self Help Radio Email Archive Project! Each week, if & when possible, I'll present an old email I wrote under unhappy circumstances for your edification & amusement. I'll not print any email I did not myself write, nor will I leave in the email any obvious reference to the person to whom I was writing, to respect their privacy, although I'm sure they've forgotten about me long, long ago.

Today's submission is full of ridiculous capital letters & was supposed to be funny. The person to whom I wrote never responded. The email was entitled "Mail Bomb." It was written over ten years ago.

I've spent the day looking at old emails I wrote you. You're so lucky I wrote such wonderful emails to you. I am a fabulous email writer. I think I will crown myself "King Cockhead" & never show my face around here again.

I'm just plain sweet, when I am not being King Cockhead. The girl what recently broked my heart told me I was "too sweet." Then she broked my heart. Just say la vie.

Yes! He's King Shit of Fuck Mountain! He's so right it makes your penis hurt, if you have a penis & it doesn't hurt already! Make him God! Make him God! Woo-hoo!

I talk very quietly, always have, in amazingly beautiful & seductive tones. My ears bleed when I scratch my ass. Anyway, I break glass here. I'm such a wonderful person, but I've got problems. & you'll never touch me.

The latest KVRX CD won the best CD Design award & of course I headed the team that designed it. Ta-da! I am KING SHIT! I am KING COCKHEAD! EVERYONE! FUCK ME UP THE ASS! NOW! NOW! NOW!

I get to make a speech, too. Tonight. With a naked girl on each arm. That's FORTY-THREE NAKED GIRLS! I am a sea cucumber!

Do they hold this at the Convention Center? Since when do women marry suits? Or date them for that matter? Did I tell you that my ears bleed whenever you sing? Preach on, Sister!

Enclosed please find a picture of a skinny girl in a tight white dress with her nipples erect. I like the picture because she looks like a mannequin & I like the road she's on. Wish I were there, wish I was there & nobody could find me.

I hope you have all the emails I wrote you. I am so fucking brilliant I am scared of my shorts. They will be worth mucho money when that diamond bullet finds its way into my head or heart. Save them! Save them now!

I love you, & always will, for I am a good KING COCKHEAD with a heart of GOLDEN CHEESE.

xoxox
gary

I have of course no idea why someone would not reply to such a beautiful email.

Whither Too Late?

Oh crap. It's too late in the day to write in my blog about this week's show, which is "too late." The show, if I were to do it now, would be too early, even if it were "too late." But I have stuff to do & frittered away time today with stuff like work & mining & now it's just too late to write anything. Drat!

Preface To Too Late!: A Brutal Ritual Is Born & Bred

Do you own a hazmat suit? I don't. But I do want one. Unfortunately, one hears two disheartening facts about hazmat suits that makes it very unlikely for me to ever get a hazmat suit (unless you get one for me):

1) They're apparently expensive - some may cost as much as four thousand dollars!
2) Some of them have to be disposed after use. Like a tuxedo!

By the way, I don't want one because I'm afraid of biological or chemical or nuclear attacks. I just want to have a hazmat suit. No one I know has one. So it would be neat to have friends over & say, "Hey! Have you seen my new hazmat suit?" They'd ooo & aaa & perhaps even try it on. What fun!

Of course, if there were a biological or chemical or nuclear attack while a friend was wearing my hazmat suit, then I'd be shit out of luck. So if I get a hazmat suit, you can't wear it for very long, & you certainly can't wear it outside.

What will I need? Something called a SCBA with a hanging mask. A cooling vest. A voice-actuated radio with a microphone in the mask. Protective gloves. A one-piece Tyvek suit. What's that? It's one of these. Disposable! What a waste. Also Tyvek booties.

That's just one layer! Listen to this: "The suit has a one way (exhaust) pressure bleed valve. This is required because as the wearer exhales, the used air must go somewhere. Even with this valve, the suits tend to blow up like balloons. When sealed up, the wearer is completely isolated from the outside atmosphere. Nothing (hopefully) can get in, and, unfortunately, almost nothing (including body heat and sweat) can get out. These suits are comprised of up to a dozen protective layers."

(That's from the Santa Clara County Fire Department website. Those guys get to wear hazmat suits at work!)

Doesn't it sound awesome? I'm not saying you should get me anything for National Day of the People's Republic of China (which is tomorrow), but if you're going to, there's an idea. A hazmat suit for Gary. Yippee!

Nevermind The Bedsores

In a mention at the last convention, the intention of the dissention of those who escaped detention was by extension brought to our attention. Like a benediction adapted from fiction delivered with sloppy diction, this removed all restrictions & caused friction tantamount to dereliction. The unruly faction sought to take action to gain a measure of satisfaction from the reaction of the abstraction, causing a distraction from their transaction. Such causation happened in gradation leading to the formation of a new foundation premised on the temptation of salvation for friends & relations currently on vacation. Denouncing it as absurd was what was preferred among those who concurred - even preferred - to dismiss the word that occurred as though it were slurred, unheard, conferred by a nerd.

All of this fol de rol would have easily been avoided if they had all come together as you & I have now & simply sat down with drink in hand & ears wide open & listened to last week's episode of Self Help Radio. Known the world over as the one true radio show, capable of moderating the fiercest of disagreements, possessing the finest of what is known as "good music," Self Help Radio is currently under study by conflict-resolution researchers the world over for its measured manners & soothing overtones.

& if that's not entirely (or at all) true, then at least it's fun. Go! Listen to Self Help Radio! Or I'll rhyme some more!

Late On Friday

Obligatory post to remind you Self Help Radio is new tomorrow afternoon-ish. A short about diaries. You can use this link as a little key to unlock it at Self Help Radio Dot Net. Not yet! Tomorrow around the afternoon time when I am napping & you want to steal my secrets. Or see what I really think of you. Or what you really think of me. That's right! I read your diary & copied the nasty things you said about me word-for-word in my diary! How you like them apples, appleton?!?

Have a nice weekend. Get some sleep. Have a few drinks. Listen to the show!

Scheduled Outage

They're going to turn off this blog before anything can be written in it. Whatever shall I do? Must I be pithy? Must I be succinct? How can I be asked to do things I have obviously never done before?

I'm going to try to see Morgen Spurlock tonight. I'm not a horror movie fan, but I can safely say that, of all the scary damn movies ever made, his documentary/death-defying experiment Super Size Me frightened me the most. I am not certain exactly why - I am a hard-drinking vegetarian who's bound to die earlier than most - but since I saw the film, I have not eaten fast food.

I must qualify. Yes, there have been two or three exceptions, probably at airports, but also once when I had to rescue my crazy girlfriend from her own death-defying experiment, which was: falling asleep in a car going seventy miles an hour on highway 10 forty miles from Van Horn, Texas. There was nothing to eat in Van Horn except fast food, as I got there late & the supermarket was closed.

But I won't eat fast food if there are other options. & anyway, reading Fast Food Nation (& not seeing the shitty Dickie Linklater film) was more than enough for me to avoid the value menu cartel.

I say above that I am going to try to see Morgen Spurlock because of this asinine practice that places like the University have of giving out a lot of free tickets & then letting the people who come early & stand in line get in. I only hope Spurlock isn't as cool as the last person I waited hours for, which was Richard Dawkins (the picture on the wikipedia page is from the very appearance I saw!), so there won't be a large crowd. I also hope Spurlock doesn't do what Dawkins did, which was bring an amateurish powerpoint presentation with which to embarrass us all.

What? I can't shoot the shit any more? With my Self Help Radio peeps? Why? You've scheduled an outage? Bastards! I'll see you in

Whither Diaries?

I've never had a diary per se - you know, a little book with a lock that says "My Diary" on it. Not because I thought it was gay or anything - which it is. But because I never had one. No one bought me one. I wouldn't have had the money to buy myself one - not when there were still new comics coming out, anyway.

I remember in the summer of my seventh grade/eighth grade year, I became aware that I could forget my entire life. (That was before, of course, I had a lot of stuff to regret.) So I started making "tape recording" diaries at the ends of tapes of nonsense I recorded, whether it was episodes of television shows (we didn't have a VCR & yes, I would listen to them as though I were watching a repeat) or stupid attempts to be funny that eerily presaged my own dumb attempts at humor on my radio show. (My favorite fake person was a badly-British-accented fellow whose name was Gary Gutslucker. I don't remember if I thought the word was supposed to be dirty or not.)

I have some of those tapes around somewhere - I didn't make more than two weeks' worth, & my life was BORING so they're not special in any way. But they did set a tone: instead of diaries that talked about stuff, I recounted things I did. I had miscalculated the fact that ideas change as experiences change, & that I might not recognize the people I was talking about - not to mention the places I felt I would always remember.

I took this up again some time during college, again making the monstrous error of not elaborating on my ideas, my ambitions, my feelings. Looking over one of these this past summer when I was getting rid of shit because I thought I was moving to another part of the world - "diary entries" which were scrawled in the margins of old notebooks full of class notes - I found deeply important comments like: "Saw Rose today. She said I should seek professional help." I couldn't for the life of me remember who the hell Rose is. Or was. I didn't read much more.

When I first went online & met folks online - 1994, was it? - I wrote lots of emails. Lots of fucking emails. I gathered a day's worth a year or so later & realized, wow hey! They function like a diary! They were more emotional, more confessional, & because I was writing to another person, I had to explain things like my ideas, my thoughts, why I believed what I believed, etc.

Like with the tapes, though, the task of compiling them was just dumb. Also, a hard drive wipe would have erased everything - though so far that hasn't happened. Maybe that's a good thing.

Without explaining a tryst with Usenet & the inevitable trailing off of internet-only friends, I have had less & less "diary-like" opportunities over the past decade, & have never really tried to keep anything like a diary since then. I have been able to talk somewhat about my life on the radio - though that usually gets to be BORING too - & I can still use the email collection as a kind of vague outline of my life's experiences, but the last, worst hope is probably this blog, which I write it every day of the week, usually, & which usually contains nearly nothing about my life. You know, except for days like today.

Which is perfect.

Preface To My Diary: Home Sick Is Not Homesick

It is not. When one is homesick, one is not "home." One can perhaps be in a temporary "home," which is to say a place where one is residing, such as a cabin in the woods if one is a forest ranger, or a military base if one is a soldier, or on a relative's pull-out sofa if one is an American who has just lost one's house because of greedy American bankers wanting as much money as humanly possible & given permission by a corrupt American government, or a small "plate" at the bottom edge of a diamond if one is a baseball player scoring a run for the game, but none of those "homes" are the same as the place were one either resides in a more permanent sense or is the place one considers that one belongs. "Homesickness" is the longing one feels for one's place of belonging, often more imagined than real, & it can be potent.

Being home sick, as I am today, actually means being in that place of belonging, but not in good physical or mental shape - ailing in some way, or temporarily brought low by a germ or virus or bad luck.

The difference, like a lot of things, is a matter of context. But it can create misunderstanding if context is not properly emphasized, for example, to a call to work. "I am home sick today." "Where are you?" "At home." "Why are you homesick, then? You're at home." "That's what I meant. I'm home sick." "For what?" "I'm not home sick for anything, I'm home sick because of something." "What are you homesick because of?" "My guess is something spoiled or otherwise stomach-affecting in last night's meal." "God, who would be homesick for something like that?" "Me." "You're crazy! You should see a doctor!" "If it continues, I will." "I don't mean a doctor for being homesick!" "But if I am home sick too long, surely I should see a doctor?" "Not a medical doctor! A psychologist or something!" "How could a psychologist help me if I have a stomach ache?" "Well, he couldn't, but he could help you if you've spent too long homesick." "You make no sense."

Et cetera. Much unintended comedic conversation until the ghosts of Abbot & Costello appear & beat the living crap out of the idiotic pair.

This is a public service announcement from Self Help Radio & a nauseous fellow wishing he could sleep all day.

Bail Me Out!

Seriously. If there's that much money lying around, who would miss a few thousand dollars put into the account of a sweet fellow who does a silly radio show that - I think I read this somewhere - "hurts no one & no one hurts it"? Call it "the Iraq way," & pretend I am one of the Halliburtons.

No? Well, fine. But I shall continue to do all the things I normally do, but with less money than if I had the government money they are now spending to buy us all an insurance company. Can I at least have some insurance? Do the owners get a discount?

No? All right, then I'm going to go start working on this week's exciting episode of Self Help Radio, which will feature excerpts from my diary because the show is about diaries. How exciting! Nothing like last week's ridiculous show about heartbeats, which I did while holding my breath. A mistake!

You want to listen to it anyway? You're sweet. Visit Self Help Radio to do so, then. I will be happy & also slightly embarrassed. You know. Like I always am.

As Promised, Heartbeats & Funk

The weekend is here. My dog Ringo turns six, my mother turns 79. September turns its head & coughs. & two things are happening this weekend that concern you which you cannot & surely shall not miss.

First, this month's Self Help Radio Extra is a premium blend of what scientists call "funky soul." I found myself listening to some slightly obscure funk earlier this month & it led me to some other places, & this mix is a result of my exploration. Please enjoy. The playlist is on the page.

Second, this week's Self Help Radio will take the focus away from your broken mind to discussing & playing songs about heartbeats. I'll have the show ready for the doctor to see tomorrow afternoon exclusively at selfhelpradio.net. You know all about it.

Have a safe weekend. & remember, bringing Self Help Radio along might not make your weekend safer, but at least you'll know you were enjoying something before a random doom descends upon you. As it always seems to do on a Sunday afternoon. Why is that?

Funky In Here

This is what some people would call a "teaser."

The Oxford English Dictionary, that old bastard, defines a "teaser" thusly:

One who or that which teases, in various senses:
- One who teases wool, cotton, or the like; or, an instrument or machine for teasing wool, etc.
- One who teases or annoys.
- A woman who arouses but evades amorous advances; a ‘cock-teaser’. colloq.
- A strip-tease act; a strip-tease artist.
- Something that teases, or causes annoyance; something difficult to deal with, a ‘poser’.
- An introductory advertisement, esp. an excerpt or sample designed to stimulate interest or curiosity. orig. & chiefly U.S.

I mean the last definition. By the way, there are some weird-ass definitions for "teaser" (besides the one about wool - what the hell?) which I have neglected to include, a) because I don't want the OED suing me, & 2) because they're weird-ass. Like:

- An inferior stallion or ram used to excite mares or ewes.
- In elephant-hunting: "When we find them, the teasers, who are the most courageous of the hunters, begin to tease the leaders of the herd. The bulls soon become angry and excited and give chase to the teasers."
- In Cricket, a ball that is difficult to play. (possibly obsolete, since no one talks to anyone who play cricket, wisely)
- A fisherman's device (orig. live bait) for attracting fish.
- A kind of toy pipe with a coil (of paper, etc.) at the end which shoots out when one blows down the stem.

Really? That's what those toys are called?

Crap, I've quoted a lot of the definitions. The OED Legal Team is going to be teasing me in court for years to come.

Anyway, the point is: I am just saying that I am putting the last touches on this month's Self Help Radio Extra, which (it isn't ready yet, hence the tease) should be full of funky soul. I ran out of time today because I had to get a shot. Then I had to freak out because I got a shot. Then I had to get another shot to keep me from freaking out. Then another. Then another.

Those, of course, were shots of whiskey. Boom!

Tomorrow, then. Self Help Radio Extra. Be there or your freed ass won't be able to explain anything to your mind.

Whither Heartbeat?

A few weeks ago I saw something somewhere (funny how context eludes you, even when alluded to), possibly in a nature show or something like that, which suggested that we have a finite number of heartbeats. That, with corrections of course made for use & things like accidents (although wouldn't it be weird if you died early but you heart had to fulfill its contractual obligation to beat for the amount of time for which it was programmed?), our hearts will pump as long as they are supposed to pump. & the implication (or at least the meaning I took away from the television show/article/podcast/whatever) was that pretty much all mammals have the same number of heartbeats per life. Thus, little critters whose hearts beat way faster live shorter life spans, while behemoths live longer. That got me thinking about heartbeats.

Is it true? Here's an excerpt from a quick web search looking for that answer, in a silly article about human longevity:

Mice and elephants lead very different lifestyles — one ponderous, the other manic — yet rodents & pachyderms share the same pervasive pattern of aging. Individuals who survive the perils of daily life, from disease to predators, inevitably begin declining after finishing about half a billion heartbeats. Elephants live much longer than mice, but their hearts also beat far slower, so the total allotment stays remarkably similar. Few mammals live to celebrate their billionth pulse.

...[T]hat billion heartbeat limit that seems to confine all mammals, from shrews to giraffes [is] a pretty neat correlation, till you ponder the chief exception.

Us. Most mammals our size and weight are already fading by age twenty, when humans are just hitting their stride. By eighty, we've had about three billion heartbeats!

Of course we're the exception to the rule. We invented Accupril, Lopressor, Vasotec, Cardizem, Anacanapanasan, Vaxadrin & the rest. Duh!

Preface To Heartbeat: A Sadness, Not In Verse

Briefly, then, we overlook the mammalian heart, to seek some sort of solace instead where the heart may beat more fierce, in smaller so-called lesser orders, where something called love is never the order of the day - the week, the month, the year, should we live so long - where, indeed, clothed far more ostensibly fragile in crumples & mossy armor, a heart concerns itself mainly with the day-to-day & not with lofty chemical pursuits, where hearts attack due to dysfunction & not self-inflicted misfunction, & there we stay, letting the level, amoral lessons of nature steel us in a kind of organic & counterintuitive resolve, not remaining long, though we long to stay, to be settled in the soup, sludge & dew of wayward ago, for it may slow down the relentless beating, not of heart, which we shall learn to ignore, or learn to respect for its tireless work, but the beating instead of our tumble-down thoughts, our frightening, pulse-racing imaginings, which we know are not real, but which afflict us as we could create phantoms to haunt & hurt us, but not here - never here - we shall not stay long enough here - just a trifling in the exhausting span of our unappreciated lives, but hopefully, like the mud on the soles of our feet or the dampness gathering around us as we breathe & sleep, maybe enough time to stay & absorb & forget, not asking why the broken heart is brought back at all, but asking why it keeps beating regardless, & knowing our love songs & our love stories & our jealousies & whimperings & our orgasmic exaltations & our deep sweaty nerves affect it only incidentally - till we understand truly what the heart beats for, & take that knowledge into our better years.

There's Nothing Like A Salt Lick

It's true. Except another salt lick. This is mainly important for all my friends who happen to be birds in cages. Salt licks go a long way with them - even if there's no iodine & the birds get goiters.

Oh god is he still talking about salt? Wasn't he done with that dumbass salt show last week? I guess we should thank god he's not talking about Hurricane Ike.

Salt licks are however incredibly unimportant during this terrible hurricane season.

Oh christ!

I'm not just talking about hurricanes in the traditional "Ike" sense, but also in the non-traditional, non-western "typhoon" sense.

Great. Now he thinks there's something different about a typhoon. Next thing you know, he'll mention tidal waves & tsunamis.

For example, while your standard western hurricane creates tidal waves, typhoons produce what scientists call "tsunamis" (it rhymes with a video game manufacturer whose name escapes me).

Konami?

Hey, it just occurred to me that this is sort of like that "The Word" segment on The Colbert Report!

Oh god, you're right. Look, this whole blog thing - not to mention your own show - is derivative as all hell anyway - why not just plug last week's show & get the fug outta here.

You got it. Hey! Hurricane survivors & everyone else! Go listen to this week's Self Help Radio, which is about salt, yay! over at selfhelpradio.net! It's good for you in exactly the same way a hurricane is not!

Excellent. Wanna get a drink or something?

Yes!

Office Spacing

I moved offices today. That's an excuse. Hurricane Ike may be visiting Austin tomorrow so I need to go home & watch the news obsessively & with perverse glee to watch newscasters get blown around in high winds off Galveston. So I didn't have time today to write some nonsense here & I won't have time now. Instead I am wasting time making excuses.

But! Tomorrow! Self Help Radio is all about salt! & not at all about hurricanes! Although wouldn't it be weird if it were?

VIsit selfhelpradio.net around the time Houston is underwater & enjoy!

Needles To Say

Needles, I say! So sharp to the finger-prick, so hard for the threading! Did you know needles are mentioned over four thousand times in the Christian Bible? Let me rephrase that. Did you know I have written the word "needle" four thousand times all over the pages of my Christian Bible? It's true! Look it up!

But it does say that thing about shoving a camel through a needle's eye in like three of the four gospels. What up with that? Someone call the Roman SPCA! Jesus been shoving camels again! Is that why that Alaska woman hates moose so much? Are moose Alaska's camels?

"Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her," Shakespeare said, but too late! I had meddled with her. & she had thrown a drink in my face. But how it would have hurt if she had had a glass full of needles!

Needles also means hypodermic needles, attached to syringes, attached (ultimately) to Lou Reed. This can be of great disappointment to the uninitiated. I brought my needlepoint kit to a Needle Exchange Program expecting to trade some of my beloved Specialty Needles (I have one which is signed by all the cast members of Scooby Doo) (except Casey Kasem) (Casey Kasem is a douchebag) but instead I was told that I needed to be an IV Drug User or have a special Card which I could get at my local heroin dealer's. What a disappointment!

You are on pins & needles - & not on drugs - if you are nervous about something. Indeed, it seems to me two things are problematic here. One, who spilled all the needles & pins? Why didn't they clean them up? & two, why don't you watch where you're going? It's not like you can't see an entire floor covered in needles & pins! You probably want to live dangerously. I think you're an idiot.

Also, it's impossible, say, if you're needing to mend your threadbare coat, to use the needle on, say, your speedometer. Not to mention a VU meter! Those needles suck!

That's all the needle talk for today. I won't be "needling" you about "needles" further. Ha ha!

Whither Salt?

Salt! Salt! I just had salt on my lunch! What a coincidence!

Many people in the world today take salt for granted. There was a time when wars were fought for salt. People protested occupation by walking to get their own salt. Stores put salt in elegant containers rather than in disposable little square paper thingies. No more I say! We need to return to expensive salt! Valuable salt! Exotic salt! Priceless salt!

Okay, maybe not exotic salt. The people who extol the benefits of weird salt are kinda creepy, & probably also believe in the benefits of electrocuting their nipples when the moon is waning gibbous.

I shall construct a radio show to restore salt to its place of former glory & fame! Good old plain sodium chloride, ye shall be exalted!

At least this week. On Self Help Radio.

Preface To Salt: High Blood Pressure At Low Altitudes

"Blood pressure refers to the force exerted by circulating blood on the walls of blood vessels," says Wikipedia, & then presents to you some awesome terms which medical service folks get to use that no one else does. Note: this has very little to do with salt. I am just obsessing about blood pressure.

This has become more common in recent years, but I've always dug hypertension. It sounds like a super power, yeah? No! It's as bad a thing as real life gamma rays! Wikipedia, do me like your best girlfriend: "Hypertension, referred to as high blood pressure, HTN or HPN, is a medical condition in which the blood pressure is chronically elevated."

Even better, you could suffer from white coat hypertension. As opposed to black belt hypertension, jack boot hypertension, & the always nasty dirty undergarment hypertension, which is what I suffer from for reasons I can't be bothered to explain.

Hypotension is not nearly as interesting, mainly because hypertension sounds like your bodies about to explode & that's so totally Scanners.

Term number two: preeclampsia. Oh, it sounds like something rich white folks on the east coast spend a lot of money to get their kids into so they can go to the best schools, but my bitch Wikipedia knows the score: "Preeclampsia is a medical condition where hypertension arises in pregnancy (pregnancy-induced hypertension) in association with significant amounts of protein in the urine." Extra bonus points from mentioning urine!

Term number third: systole. Wikipedia! Testify: "Systole (rhymes with 'fiscally') is the contraction of heart chambers, driving blood out of the chambers." I know, it's only one of the measures of blood pressure, but doesn't "diastole" sound like the name of a Dutch prog-rock band? One is contraction, the other is expansion. Okay, maybe the prog-rock band would be called Systole-Diastole. But I think that diastole is boring. Systole rocks!

The coup de grace: sphygmomanometer. What the fuck?

Hey Wikipedia! Do it to me one more time: "A sphygmomanometer is a device used to measure blood pressure, comprising an inflatable cuff to restrict blood flow, & a mercury or mechanical manometer to measure the pressure." It comes from the Greek word for pulse, or the layperson's word for "fuckin' know-it-all just tell me which pills I gotta take."

By the way, waiting rooms are weird & it may be just me but there seem to be more women in them than men. Do men just not go to doctors? We don't, do we? We drop dead instead. Go us!

The Mad Rooster & The Dither Hen

That is the name of a short story that a genial fellow named Abraham Meddle was working on, his fourteenth &, he believed, most successful short story, the night he met a particularly embarrassing end while working (as he did his entire life) at the West Bubonic Paper Mill somewhere on or about a more or less empty township in the vicinity of West Texas.

The story was a simple one - a rooster who was not able to afford his meds (due to the Bush Administration's cruel restructuring of the Medicare/Medicaid needs policy) experienced a not unhappy resurgence of his schizophrenia & started to wreak havoc in the hen-house where he spent his idle time. The rooster, while not handsome, was the best the ladies in the house could hope for, but usually only when his demons were under control. When not, he tended to rip his (& others') feathers off their bodies, fly madly at the chicken wire, & issue denunciations of left-wing political candidates in a manner one matron described as "Ann Coulter-ish," which was not fit for polite company.

The dither hen was, as expected, a rather fussy & absent-minded old thing nearing the end of her laying cycle who managed to come up with a way to save the rooster without drugging him (using principles she gleaned from a cross between Christian Science & Scientology) & the body of the short story included inspirational & hilarious descriptions of the treatment & "cure" (Meddle was never interested in clear-cut endings) of the Mad Rooster, & possibly (it was unfinished) the eventual eating of the rooster & hen by a hungry family who were slowly starving thanks to the abandoning of the social safety net under the current administration in favor of "faith-based" initiatives, & the local churches frowning on the dither hen because Scientology is un-Christian & therefore leads its adherents to perdition.

Self Help Radio is glad to be able to summarize unfinished works as part of an ongoing series funded by the Confusion Group in association with Leanr To Rade, the adult literacy group run by dyslexics.

Self Help Radio dedicates its most recent show, Indiepop A To Z # 16, to these tireless advocates of whatever they care about. It's available, as are many other shows which these groups have nothing to do with either, at selfhelpradio.net. You may proceed there now single file.

Overtaxed Friday

Forgive me, loyal stalker, but I am, as the Bard says, "poopty-whoopty," on this, the end of the first week of September. I hope to get something I have heard about - it sounds exotic like a drug - you are able to see vivid hallucinations, all the while your bodies apparently replenishes itself - it's called "sleep" - at some point during the weekend. Because I cannot apparently get any during the week. I don't really know any reliable dealers.

But first & foremost, I will concentrate on this week's Self Help Radio. I believe you'll like it - I've decided to forego the airbreak/song style & present it as a continuous mix. That way I might be able to get to the Indiepop D's before John McCain steal the next election.

Have a lovely weekend & visit selfhelpradio.net tomorrow for yummy indiepop fun.

Like Teeth On Cheese Cloth

I am sleepy. I have been waking up on Thursday mornings to listen to a radio show called The War On Sailing, which is based on a blog I like called The War On Sailing, which is, I am embarrassed to say, where I get about 1/16th of the news I need to make it through the day. But the radio show is on from 5 to 7 am so boy are my arms tired.

He's not very good with his blog, though. So I am not rewarded for staying awake in this manner. But I am thinking of offering him space on the Self Help Radio web page & archiving some of his shows. The host, Vance Chamberlain, is notoriously untrustworthy & once shaved a man because he thought the man's moustache was a danger to himself & others. So whether I can convince him is entirely up to him. My powers of persuasion have been at low ebb. I am thinking of working for the other side, frankly.

There's no reason for you to lose hope, though! Or wait, were you? You had a face that either suggested you were losing hope or that you were chewing some fruity gum & then drank a diet soda & you realized that it was the exact flavor of a cherry Slurpee. Which one was it? You're going to be a pain in the ass until House returns for the fall.

Which reminds me, two more studios passed on the script I have been pretending to write for Self Help Radio: The Radio Show: The Movie. Surprisingly, even after a long liquid lunch, they want to see a script! I even mentioned ninjas, boobies, zombies & boobies! Ah well. Back to looking for a home on the radio. Tell me if you see any signs up. I'm going to call Vance Chamberlain & pretend to be Condoleeza Rice. It'll make him howl.

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 16?

Jus' continuin' the series, kind sir. Please leave me in peace whilst I listen to the jangly pop. Thank you.

Man! I'm hungry! It's a good thing I don't have pica. Not only that, it's a good thing that I, as an older male, don't even have the chance, short of a brain short circuit, of contracting pica. That's a relief. I might still get cancer, you know, or diabetes, or the good ol' epizootic. But no pica for me!

Still, I have to wait till I go home to eat, for three reasons:

1) As a vegetarian, my options in the world around me are limited. Not as limited as when I became a vegetarian in 1986, but still.
2) Since reading Fast Food Nation, a book I cannot recommend more highly, I don't eat fast food. That dwindles my already small pool of available eateries. & I don't really want to go to a restaurant alone. I would feel lonesome. The waiter would spill coffee on me.
3) If I eat without the love of my life, I am likely to get a beatdown. Seriously. She's always hitting me. I think she likes to hurt me. Ow! Oh shit! She's able to punch me psychically! Ow! She's mean! I hope I get a brain tumor & it causes me to get pica!

I know. I'll go find some gum. Meanwhile, I continue listening to the jangly pop. You're bound to be pleased.

Preface To Yet Another Indiepop A To Z: Blood Tests

Blood tests are obviously very helpful. According to a very helpful web site, "blood tests are used to determine physiological & biochemical states such as disease, mineral content, drug effectiveness, & organ function." So of course a very helpful thing to do. However, the same very helpful website states: "Although the term blood test is used, most routine tests (except for most haematology) are done on plasma or serum instead of blood cells."

Is that so! Why not "plasma tests"? As someone who's naturally scared of needles entering my veins & drawing out my precious, precious water of life, I would much prefer someone getting rid of smelly plasma than delicious blood. Plasma is the rind of blood. You can test as much as you want!

Blood tests, they are telling me now, involve taking the blood first, & then, through a process of deceit & guile, getting the plasma from the blood, & then feeding the blood to the stray dogs that congregate outside the clinic, unless someone at the clinic wants to take the blood home for their own pets. This seems far more reasonable & forward-thinking than the other, more wasteful clinics where the blood is taken for granted & left out on a dish by the kitchen window to cool & spoil.

My own interest in blood tests is none of your business (or even your interest), so I refuse to make a big to-do stinkeroo about them here in this general forum. However, I will have any & all phlebotomists out there to understand that my veins are my veins, & they will not be trifled with as if they were mountains with minerals in them for your personal enrichment. That's all I have to say on the subject except this:

"Ow! Watch where you put that needle!"

Laborious Day

Greeting on what I hope is a "day off." I like to consider it "possible nap time." Although I probably won't get to nap.

What I do get to do is remind you that Self Help Radio was only a little sleepy when I interviewed the great Mr Impossible (tm) for the Impossible show, which was made available to your grubby little computer hands on Saturday over at selfhelpradio.net. Please enjoy. The reviews are pouring in here at SHR central, although they're reviews of "Hamlet 2" & not the Impossible Show. Therefore it would make no sense to share them with you.

If you had to labor on Labor Day, those of us who are just taking laborious breaths thank you. You made it possible for us to enjoy yet another hot, sticky, unpleasant late summer day, while another hot, wet, unpleasant hurricane threatened the lives of our neighbors in the gulf region. Hooray for you! Hooray for holidays!

Interview with Mr. Impossible!

O boy o boy o boy o boy o boy!

Self Help Radio is going to be impossibly awesome this weekend because I have just found out that - hold on to your haunches - I'm going to get a visit from the legendary Mr. Impossible! Star of stage, screen & informercial, first into battle & the last one to leave the movie theater after the credits fade, hero, father of nine, singer, songwriter, dancer, sport-fisherman, painter, sculptor, poet, movie critic, did I say dancer?, business executive, doyen of international finance, Nobel Prize nominee, husband, part-time homemaker, Santa Claus for the poor, political arbitrator, conservationist, auto enthusiast & amateur photographer Mr. Mother Fucking Impossible will be on Self Help Radio!

Don't even ask me how I made this happen. I'll tell you, though. Mr. Impossible is in town to speak to at-risk youth about California & he was having a long liquid lunch at my favorite local sandbar, the Blather, & I of course noticed him - although he doesn't wear the cape when he's having lunch! - & I offered to buy him a drink. I was nervous, thinking everyone does that & also that he might think I was coming on to him. He said, "A drink? You can buy me lunch!"

Oh wow!

We talked - well, he did, mostly - about everything - well, mostly about him - & I told him I did this little podcast & he was like, "I love the new media! What does it pay?" I told him it didn't pay anything - not even attention - but he was such a trooper - he liked my show so much! - that he promised to stop by tonight if I made him dinner & bought him a case of Cold Duck!

As you can imagine, I'm nervous as a school kid on the first day of Home Economics class, but I'll get a fabulous interview out of him. It'll be awesome! Do listen tomorrow to Self Help Radio for a show full of impossibly great music as well as an interview with Mr. Impossible!

PS - are you doing anything Saturday night? Might I suggest a benefit for KVRX, Student Radio for the University of Texas? It certainly looks like fun, & it's a great cause!

Strengthening Gustav Heads For Jamaica

Why does the new Gustav want to go to Jamaica, anyway? You've heard his rants & raves about reggae - "It all sounds the same!" he'd bellow, banging his fist on the table like a Khrushchev wishing for a shoe. Hey! He doesn't like hot weather, either!

But he's changed. You've all seen it. He used to be a one-hundred & forty pound emo kid named Jack. He seemed to like it. & yet, as some of you recall, it was a couple of years ago, watching some "news report" on a "news channel" about a baseball player & his alleged steroid problem, your friend Jack turned the recorder on & watched the "before & after" pictures again & again. The last time you saw him like that, you'll recall, was when you got really stoned & watched "Atomic Cafe" with him, & he tried to build his own atom bomb, & he somehow imagined that, if he could get his lead gloves on some uranium, he could enrich it in a process he thought was like enriching white bread. "I'll add vitamins to the radioactive goo!" he'd shout, in-between muttering to himself & falling asleep watching an infomercial about night-blindness.

He changed his name after the steroid documentary, & he changed his life. Whether he got some or not, you don't know. "It vill be easier to get zan uranium!" he told you after drinking an entire bottle of Jagermeister on a dare, in that fake accent he's adopted since the name change. That was the last time any of you saw him until he emerged months later, weighing forty pounds more, all the extra pounds in the grotesque muscles, & missing a neck.

Speaking of drugs, he never much liked pot, either. So why Jamaica? As well, he's not terribly religious, but wasn't he raised Mormon? He'd have absolutely no interest whatsoever in Rastafarianism. It's a puzzler.

You have to admit, though, it's not like he's more likable as "Gustav" than he was as "Jack." Perhaps owing to the mysterious disappearance of his neck, Gustav doesn't talk as much as Jack. Gustav spends a lot of time paying attention to all the new things his body is doing, not complaining to anyone who'll listen why the Hollies are underrated or why Brian Wilson's return to music destroyed commercial rock in the 21st century. Gustav seems to coo a lot. Kissing his muscles. Stuff like that.

& since he doesn't drink, you don't have to worry about him haggling over a check. He's not more likable, but he is, you guess, more tolerable. But why go to Jamaica?

Oh. Oh damn. It's just a Reuters headline about a hurricane. Never mind.

Whither The Impossible Show?

What is & isn't impossible - which is to say, what is & isn't possible - is neither a simplistic dualistic demarcation nor a tritely glib adolescent conundrum. It is, actually, at the very core of an exciting new philosophical slash scientific movement, Impossible Physics.

What makes this different from, say, Science Fiction? Good question! Science Fiction as a genre is in fact possible - it already exists! Haven't you seen Star Trek? It's on the television like all the time! & did you know that people write a lot of Science Fiction books that never get made into movies? It's true! So Science Fiction is possible. It's also probable.

But Impossible Psychics does not exist. Not even my naming it as an "exciting new philosophical slash scientific movement" can make it exist. For one thing, I barely exist myself, so any pronouncement or discovery I make is negligible. I could cure cancer & simply by virtue of being me, it would hardly get noticed. Until, say, someone found the cure by accident & took credit for it. I might get to be a footnote then.

That's why I am the perfect spokesperson for Impossible Physics. I couldn't be less influential, I couldn't be more ignored. Impossible Physics has zero chance of existing as long as I am in charge of promoting it. Which, by the way, I'm not. Which can't help Impossible Physics at all!

By the way, I was just guessing up there - you know, using the fancy-pants language & saying stuff like, "a simplistic demarcation of philosophical conundrum." What a load of hoo-ha! See, Impossible Physics can't have a core because it doesn't exist! It can't exist! The moment it exists, it ceases to be Impossible, so it's never Impossible Physics!

Look, let me explain it to you. Wait, better yet, I'll do Saturday on my show. That's cool. Visit me there. I got a lot of splainin' to do.

I leave you with the new slogan of Self Help Radio: "Anything's Impossible!"

Preface To The Impossible Show: It's Just Impossible For Me To Write In This Blog Today

Sorry about that.

Wait. What just happened?

Cartography For Fun & Profit

ITEM! Stores in America are failing at a slightly humiliating rate! What does the future hold for future entrepreneurs of the future? How bearish can the market bear?

ITEM! Banks won't loan money to just anyone anymore! How will the homeless afford their McMansions now? Can Christopher Nolan's powerful Batman franchise save us?

ITEM! In spite of all the money he has raised, "Batman" is still unrecognizable to my computer's spell-check!

ITEM! I can't remember what I was talking about! Oh yes! The failing United States economy! Boy I'm glad I didn't quit my job when I thought I had to quit my job! I'd be working at one of those Starbucks that they're now closing down!

ITEM! Yes, I have no professional qualifications & would end up working at a coffee shop!

ITEM! But there's no need to panic! Let Self Help Radio panic for you!

ITEM! Yes, the "Panic" show of the Self Help Radio is available for listening to at this very moment! Four out of five dentists recommend it rather than toothpaste for listening to! & really, it's only because I just know four dentists! The fifth dentist didn't want to be my friend! What an asshole!

ITEM! To listen, just push the panic button! Help is on the way!

Bob's Your Uncle's Best Friend

There are little labels sitting on the table. Next to a girl called Mabel - she's the subject of this fable - & she receives a cable from The House Of The Seven Gables about the Tower of Babel. Mabel isn't able to decipher the labels - she's wearing her Aunt Grable's sable. Over her head. Dreaming of Fee Waybill.

If she had only read the labels, she would see censure, condemnation, denunciation. For the labels are not for record albums or mason jars filled with dried herbs, they're not for notebooks or Christmas gifts, no, they're for Self Help Radio. In particular, the Blog Writing Department.

It's no secret that fed-up employees quitting, retaliatory firings, chemical castration, & sudden infant death syndrome have haunted the Blog Writing Department of the Self Help Radio Corporation since its inception. But the reader - readers if Mom is near a computer - is used to at least five days of derivative, unfunny, unhelpful blog entries. But this week! Well! All that the Blog Writing Department could manage since Wednesday was that asinine Dr. Seussian thing up there. Mabel at a table with labels! What are we, magpies?

& Monday. What happened to Monday. "Busy at work"? They work in a Blog Writing Department!

The Management wishes to extend an apology to the fine reader of this blog-type device & wants to reassure you that, thanks to a well-placed call to the dying Robert Novak & extraordinary rendition, those Blog Writing Department "creatives" won't be disappointing you any more.

There may be a slight delay in tomorrow's "Panic" show - no more than a day - but that's not the Blog Writing Department's fault. Self Help Radio host Gary Dickerson will be in Motorcycle class. Don't ask.

Just don't ask.

Our apologies for this week! Our promises for the next! Our kingdom for horse!

Whither Panic?

For the rough & tumble, ready-to-wear man or woman on the street, panic is not an attractive proposition. It sullies the mind & wrinkles the closely-knit boundaries of circumspection & polite conversation. Furthermore, panic rarely if always delivers the goods as highly placed as "shouting fire in a cramped theater" (to quote the Supreme Court with a flourish). Mostly, the panic that one (or two) may feel is personal & inconvenient & has only slightly a lot of inherent comedic possibility than the average public display of hemorrhage.

Take, for example, the tale of Paula Piperview, a criminal defense attorney obsessed with defending strippers, hookers & gay-porn actors (not necessarily in that order, although wow! what a trial that would be!). Ms Piperview was possessed of what her parents called "a genetic predisposition" toward panic attacks whenever she heard a description, however censored, of sexual practices. Though her partners at the not really all that prestigious law firm of Barback & Hooptie urged her to go for safer fare, like arson, perhaps, or driving while intoxicated, Ms Piperview insisted (on the advice of a radio self-help host, actually) of "confronting her fears head-on." Interestingly, the nervous sweats she often got in the court room were interpreted by the simpletons in the jury as tears, & the chest pain & shortness of breath garnered lots of sympathy, so Ms Piperview won more cases than not & became sought after by the very clients who caused her attacks. Psychologists call this "a feedback loop," because of the official announcement that "irony is dead" at the year-end conference in 2003.

Another fine example is James "Jamie" Leggings, a short order cook who was forever searching for the proper medication to handle his chronic ennui. Panic attacks were often when first adjusting to a new prescription, & yet Leggings would not stay on the pills long enough to acclimatize his body to the drug. Fearing (understandably) that he might be a "panic junkie," Leggings started a chapter of Panickers Anonymous in the Duluth area & had a massive panic attack on the first meeting night in anticipation of a large turnout. Luckily three people on their way home from an unsurprisingly awful Blue Man Group show found him before he gnawed his tongue off.

These cases, though typical, are not typical of the panic-sufferer's experience except as anecdotal, & later, when there are enough of them, statistical evidence. Indeed, as Dr Corn Matherson of Lower Arikaree River College (Kansas) has opined, "While it's easy to make light of people, because they're all so damned foolish & self-important & just plain sick in the head - sick, I tell you! truly fucked-up beyond salvage, surely - the fact that so many people panic indicates that human beings will continue to be tedious for decades more."

Later in the series (concluding here) we'll discuss probable causes of panic & we'll panic a little ourselves, as deadlines approach & the sad surfers return home from the hurricane season, hungover & lonesome until Christmas, or their suicide - whichever comes first.

Preface To Panic: Nerves & Apologies

Weaselschnitzel! That's what you should call me! I got too caught up at work & stuff & didn't write in this blog yesterday. I am a weaselschnitzel! You should color my hair red & call me candy corn! Dilapidation would be too good for me!

Truth is, I've been a little panicky about the end of August, for, when August goes, so too do all my dreams. Or so I sometimes imagine. I am stuper-stitious about August, because August the month was named after the William Faulkner book Light In August which was named a hell of a long time after the disappeared month left a hole not only in my calendar, but in my heart.

Still, we continue with the Self Help Radio shows though the tide has turned & then turned away. I struggle to keep up, but no one, nay, not any one, nay I say! nor hears my cries for closeness & recommendation. That said, a mildly entertaining show about chairs exists now & for a while at selfhelpradio.net. Perhaps you would enjoy it, in exactly the same way you have never enjoyed the sound of a falling tree.

Also, the power of the Self Help Radio does often confuse & contort, so folks who imagine a show about panic will cause panic (when just the opposite is intended) are the same who imagine a show about chairs will hurt all chairs. Some chairs were naturally harmed during the making of the show. This cannot be avoided. But the show is NOT anti-chair. Self Help Radio must needs always be a celebration. Or a chance for a diversion. Either way.

I am sorry I missed yesterday. Please accept this lovely inedible gift basket from The Imaginary Shop as a token of my affectation.

Distinctively Automotive Reactions

As promised: the August Self Help Radio Extra mix is up for your listening-to enjoyment. Please hire me to make mixes for your supermarket or retail establishment. I can make old ladies blush under their rosacea. Unless that's not what you want.

As threatened: tomorrow's Self Help Radio will be about those stalwart defenders of democracy, chairs. Yes, chairs. Imagine where America would be sitting if we didn't have chairs! We'd be standing, that's where! & what true American could stand a world without chairs! Not this reclining patriot!

See you tomorrow then. Get some sleep. You look a little, I dunno, ragged. Oh wait. I'm seeing my reflection in my monitor. Holy shit!

The Worst Joke Ever: A Chronology

I got into a habit in the last century where I would get a lot of free email accounts, then subscribe them to some "daily affirmation" or "joke-a-day" service because, in those days, the accounts could be suspended in they were not used. A million of those "free email" sites came & went, sadly. My favorites were muslimonline.com (I so wanted to be christ@muslimonline.com, but someone beat me to it) & startrekonline.com (although of course the best emails there were already taken - even yoda@startrekonline.com!). Of course, I took to reading the daily whatevers (I'm not proud), & I have two thoughts about them, since I checked one of my remaining accounts just now & it's still subscribed to one of those daily email services.

The first thought is: some of those daily emails are pathetic, some are just saccharine & unbearable, none are helpful or interesting to people who have IQs with more than two digits, but at least one was downright scary. It doesn't exist any more, but one I subscribed to could have been called "The Scariest Possible Conclusions Drawn From Daily Bible Verses." I don't have any of them saved, alas! (the account disappeared - maybe I was cute & subscribed it to my muslimonline account!) but here's a paraphrase:

TODAY'S VERSE: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind, it is abomination." Lev. 18:22
TODAY'S LESSON: You must kill all homosexuals.

Not that unsubtle, of course, but scary enough for me, & I've seen most if not all of the seven billion kinds of religious craziness, to go, "Whoa!" Day after day. It was awesome!

The second is: those joke of the day emails are painfully lame. I know some so-called comedians & even their slightly exhausting attempts at funny ha ha are brilliant compared with most of these. I just wish they'd steal something from a book. It makes me sad. Here was today's (paraphrased):

A dude stole a bird. He ran afowl of the law!

Seriously. They used a few dozen more words, but that was the joke. & it's like that most every day!

I spent a little free time today working on the August Self Help Radio Extra. I'll put it up tomorrow. I'm sure you can't wait. Meanwhile, I'll be starting a Self Help Radio Joking Affirmation Of The Day email list soon enough. Sign up for it at your own peril.

Whither Chairs?

This week's Self Help Radio is dedicated to the loving memory of Alfred "Thorny" Swaller, the most famous man in the world ever born without a heinie.

For years young "Thorny" watched as other kids, kids with rear ends, were able to do all the fun things that he could not. Among the joys denied "Thorny" were: flatulence, ass-slapping, defecation, buggery, pinchy-pinchy, mooning, &, of course, sitting. Alfred "Thorny" Swaller was one of the few young men in America who never, ever used a chair.

"There are many delicate & painful consequences involved in being born without a posterior," says Dr. Leonard Felch, a leading specialist in the treatment of birth defects. "Nature will re-route your waste expulsion mechanism to wherever it can. Which can be disgusting."

But why, Dr. Felch, couldn't "Thorny" sit?

"Most of all, his condition caused the body to lean forward when he walked, & so he tended to remain upright when possible. Or lean. 'Thorny' was a leaner. Trying to sit might 'bow' his body in such a way that it would not only have been quite painful but it may have made it impossible for him to get back up without help. & 'Thorny' was fiercely independent."

Three months ago, the forty-five-years-young "Thorny" Swaller wrote an email to the Self Help Radio offices, then in exile in Kitchener, Ontario. The letter, which cannot be reproduced because it was illegible, touched the staff of the well-regarded but under-nourished radio show, who determined to make a show for "Thorny" before he died. Unfortunately, Alfred "Thorny" Swaller died, ironically enough, from prostate cancer, which the doctors had missed, because they had assumed he either didn't have a prostate gland, or it was simply some place else. Oh he had one.

A "regime change" at the Self Help Radio offices brought down Scooter Lothario, executive in charge of thematics, who already was in trouble because of the "Dynamite" show debacle (TNT is not dynamite! Stupid stupid stupid!), & he was replaced by sentimental favorite Silver Fredlington, who promptly decided that the next show, regardless of theme, be dedicated to Swaller.

Fredlington was fired earlier this week when it was discovered the show would be all about chairs.

Nonetheless, this week's Self Help Radio is dedicated to the loving memory of Alfred "Thorny" Swaller. Here's hoping that, wherever you are, you can finally sit down.

Preface To Chairs: Have A Seat!

There was once an increasingly violent discussion between two friends about punctuation. In particular, the taller of the two friends was telling the shorter of the two friends that the shorter of the two friends used the exclamation point way too often to suit the taller of the two friends' taste. The taller of the two friends told the shorter of the two friends that the continual gratuitous use of the exclamation point pissed him off.

"Really!" said the shorter of the two friends. The taller of the two friends started hitting the shorter of the two friends & did not stop until the shorter of the two friends could now be called "the friend who was now a bloody pulp."

"My God!" said the friend who was not a bloody pulp under his breath when he realized what he had done to his friend who was now a bloody pulp. "I can't believe I did that just because of an exclamation point!"

The New Yorker noted that "this story is amusing enough for pleasant company at cocktail parties, ski lodges, & barn burnings." The original writer of the tale, Savage H. Puncture, while agreeing with the review, quickly point out that the reviewer, summarizing the tale, left out the important ending & its import. In fact, there were two more paragraphs about a quizzical chair who watched the two friends with interest, especially when the blood began to be spilled.

Puncture's final paragraph told us that the chair did not get the same joke the reader of the tale should, & that that was sad, because it meant that chairs had no sense of irony. Chairs could be used ironically, or placed ironically, or discussed ironically, but they did not themselves understand the irony of a man angry at exclamation points using them when he realized where his anger led him.

Savage H. Puncture himself was murdered by a friend who didn't like his writing at all.

A Wealthy Of Sharing

Hey! I had to wake up this morning early for the first time in thirteen years! It was awful! It's all dark outside & my girlfriend's still in bed with me! It was just so unseemly!

Why did I wake up so early? It was to listen to my former barber & current pal Zeke Moonshine as he subbed one of KVRX's great shows, Heliocentric Hootenanny. Zeke was there with his untrustworthy sidekick Boy Howdy, who's weirder than a square egg. I went ahead & archived the show over at my Self Help Radio page, since I liked it so much. Or I would have, if I had heard it. I fell back asleep because I couldn't find a way to remove my pillow prematurely from my head. It would've been like abortion or self-mutilation or something.

Might I also remind you, if you're visiting the Self Help Radio so-called web site, that this past week's Self Help Radio, about blossoms & blooms, is available there for however you want to play with it. It's a good show, & you'll learn all about flower pinching. Or are you brave enough? Hmmm?

Hurrah! I am done with this blog entry! Now I need to go stand outside in the painful August heat & see if I can keep my eyes open by burning my lower eyelids so it hurts for the upper lids to touch them.

Olympic Scandal!

It's true! There's shame & scandal involving the Olympics! But not the shame & scandal you'd expect! No - NBC, which is showing the Olympics on the teevee over the next three hundred days, is pre-empting the best thing on television this summer: new episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent!

Look, I am as sad as you are of the fucked-up Chinese government & how they treat their people, & I wish & hope that somehow the word could get out & life could get better for the Chinese. But you know what? NBC doesn't care. Most certainly our government doesn't care. & what's worse, we owe the Chinese government a shitload of cash money. NBC is doubtless under strict orders not to get too "moral" or soon they'll be renamed the Nanking Broadcasting Company. I am sad & I wish & I hope but you know nothing is going to change because of the goddamned Olympics. The only thing sports changes is sweat into dollars - mostly for people who don't have to break a sweat.

With that all said, why can't I see new episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent instead? Mike Logan is leaving again! Eames is still mad at Goren! I still have a difficult-to-explain-to-my-girlfriend crush on Wheeler! Why celebrate & obfuscate the oppressive Chinese regime when more important things are happening in my imaginary emotional slash crime fighting life!

Look, I know they're shown on USA. I make sure I record them from USA. But my bullshit cable company doesn't have USA in high def. So the only chance I'm going to get to gaze longingly at Vincent D'Onofrio - er, I mean, Julianne Nicholson - in crisp, scarier than life video, is when it's shown on the bullshit local NBC affiliate. You get me? I've been taping one episode, then waiting eight days to see it in high def. & now the motherfucking Olympics has fucked that up for me.

I protest. I protest vehemently. Also, I won't be watching the Olympics grand opening sale-a-bration tonight, no. I'll be working on tomorrow's Self Help Radio, which is all about blossoms & blooms, something they know nothing about in China, & it'll be available tomorrow afternoon exclusively at selfhelpradio.net. But it'll be sad. For there will be no high def Law & Order: Criminal Intent for it to look forward to when it is done.

Weep for me! Weep for China! Weep for this world of fucked priorities! But mostly, weep for me. Seriously.

Saaaaay, Should You Be In North Carolina Or Something By Now?

Wow, I thought you'd never ask! If there weren't already an elephant in the room here with us, that would be the elephant in the room! (The elephant wants a peanut.)

No one but you cares, but I'll write about it here anyway. You'll recall that my lovely squeeze, Magda, had made plans to get her PhD this summer (she got it, a doctorate in whiskerology) (note, I started dating her because I thought she said "whiskeyology") (I'm an idiot) & had found a post-doc at Duke University, which is in North Carolina. I did lots of stuff in preparation for this - I drank more, I left my show & the radio station which kindly aired it, I began to make preparations for leaving my job, & I also drank more. A major freaky thing I was doing was mentally preparing myself to leave this place I've lived more than half of my life. I was riding the bus & going like (in my head, not to the drunk next to me) "This is the last time I'll ride the number 343 home from the comic convention!" Stuff like that. I wanted to be as supportive to Magda as possible, & I was definitely excited about going somewhere else.

The way things went, though, was somewhat different. We travelled to Durham in June, & toured the Duke campus, & visited the free-roaming lemurs in the Duke Forest, & had a swell time in that city built smack dab in a forest. But on the second day, Magda was deeply unhappy. We had one of those patented couple-related "long talks." It took a long time. I think we were up until 4am. I think she ate all the donut holes they had left at the nearby Kroger. In any event, she wasn't sure she wanted to be an academic. She had been complaining all during the writing of her dissertation of wanting to do something else - most often she mentioned being a veterinarian - rather than being a full-time anthropologist. I knew the only important thing was her being happy, so I let her argue with herself with only minor input, being devil's advocate for whatever position was winning at the time. It's only been a couple of months now, but it feels very blurry to me. It was a long night.

She decided not to take the job & to return to school to become a veterinarian. Luckily I had not quit my job or else I might have ended up in North Carolina on the bum circuit. She'll need to take two years of catch up classes before she gets to vet school, so I suppose she can reconsider at that time. But frankly I think she'll do it. The chick likes being in school.

I have kept doing Self Help Radio as a podcast (in case you haven't noticed) but it probably won't return to the air for some time. Worry not, though! There are other surprises in store! The Self Help Radio family of broadcasters & alcoholics is ever-growing & you can watch the weirdo progress at regular intervals at selfhelpradio.net!

& as for me, yeah, I'm still in Austin. Sorry to disappoint that guy on the corner of 51st & Cameron who thinks I stole his spot. Dude, I was just crossing the street to urinate into the Home Depot concrete! I always carry a sign that says, "US VETRAN GOD BLES!" It reminds me of dear old dad. Or dear old mom. Or someone dear & old.

That's why I am still here. Why are YOU still here?

Whither Blossom & Bloom?

Tee hee, the title of this post could be "Wither, Blossom & Bloom." I should change it. I won't change it.

Well, Tropical Petulance Edouard (now known as Tropical Fart Reoutard) didn't hardly bring any rain to Austin so I was excited about nothing. But it did make the place more humid than a heavy breathing factory (you know, a factory whose product is heavy breathing... no? isn't funny? all right) & it encouraged me to press on with what is truly a bizarre subject for the middle of a nastily hot summer: blossoms & blooms!

Y'know, folks who want to complain about Self Help Radio (which always seems like more than have listened to it) (although, of course, the number of both is tiny) (though your presence here makes it all worthwhile, wink wink!) seem to mostly have a problem with the fact that only sometimes do I do explore timely themes. In other words, since the show this week is on the 9th of August, why don't I do a show about telegraphs, since on that date in 1892, Thomas Edison got a patent for one? Or how about a celebration of Kurtis Blow (it's his birthday) & old skool hip hop? Or maybe just a show about nines, since it's the ninth? It doesn't have to be nonsensical. Like "blossoms & blooms" in the middle of summer, months after the last blossom has bloomed, & the last bloom has blossomed!

I appreciate this criticism. It would be fun indeed to have that sort of show, where people could check in on particular days & be all like, "Yay! This is the anniversary of when some rock star died in his own vomit, so Self Help Radio's all about regurgitation!" But, alas, my mind doesn't work that way. It latches on to ideas & thoughts & develops them whether I am incredibly drunk or not. Eventually they suggest something to me. I've worked to have certain "regular" shows, but the shows that generally give me the greatest joy are the shows have a timelessness about them - they're shows about something, & that something doesn't require that you be fixed firmly in some spot in time to appreciate them. At least I hope so. It could be I'm just spinning my wheels.

Something blossomed in my brain a few weeks back about blossoms & blooms. I said, "Bloomin' hell!" (in a fakey English voice) "I've got to do me a show about that!" Then I fell on my face &, as I began to choke a little on my own vomit, I thought, as I passed out, "Also, regurgitation might be a good theme for a show..."

(Separate note: big ups to Austin EMS crew Alpha Tango Bravo. Thanks for not removing my tongue when I refused to stop swallowing it!)

Preface To Blossoms & Blooms: Let's Talk About The Weather

What is the nooz telling us about Austin's weather?

Monday the 4th of August was the 42nd day of triple-digit heat so far in this Austin summer, with readings of 100-105 degrees all over, from the Hill County to counties east of I-35. Self Help Radio's own Self Help Gary has reported that it's well over one hundred degrees in his pants, with possibly higher temperatures in his car, where neglected bottles of soda have been known to bend, fold & weep.

Monday's high matched the number of over 100 degree days Austin experienced in 2000, but was like a crying little girl compared to 1925 with 69 plus-100 days & 1923 with 66 (in the days before air conditioning!). But of course Austinites weren't coddled whiney-butts then. They weren't afraid of a little goddamn sweat. For 69 days. Also, they died of cholera & influenza all the time. When they weren't lynching people a little darker in skin tone than them.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. The National Weather Service, that august bureaucratic body, notes that Austin averages eleven triple-digit days a year, but everyone has already forgotten that it rained all last summer so that totally brought the average down. It's always really hot in Austin in the summer. That's all.

As I came out to go to work today, I noticed it wasn't as hot. Why is that? Motherfucking tropical storm Edouard, that's why! We're going to get some rain! Hot damn! Just remember, gentle reader: "Turn around, don't drown." & peep these awesome flood facts:

BANG! Six inches of water will reach the bottom of most passenger cars, causing loss of control & possible stalling.
CRASH! Twelve inches of water will float many cars. So size does matter.
SPLASH! Two feet of rushing water will carry off pick up trucks, SUVs & many other vehicles. & surely it will serve them right! Gas-guzzlers!
SWOOSH! Cars can become death traps because electric windows & door locks can short out when water reaches them, trapping occupants inside. Of course, if they're death traps, they'll also trap death inside. Which is bad news for the occupants.
CLANG! More Texans die in floods than any other severe weather event. When we have weather, it freaks us out.
& finally:
KA-BOOM! Most flooding deaths can be avoided if drivers turn around instead of driving into water across a road.

I am about to encourage that people who want to go out in the rain to follow instead my own advice, which is, when the weather's bad, dance! That's right: "Get down, don't drown!" Because we're all in the fourth grade in we can't remember anything unless it rhymes.

Wash us all away Edouard! It's too frickin' hot here! & it's been too long since I've seen any blossoms & blooms!

Quest Stars!

After a week of avoiding stuff, I am happy to get back on track & simply ignore stuff. What? You don't know whatof I speak? For shame! Fie & kerfuffle! You are now instructed to visit selfhelpradio.net to listen to last week's show. It is all about avoidance, & since you are no longer allowed to avoid it, you must therefore do whatever the opposite of avoid is. Yes! You must confront it! You must seek it out! You must face up to it!

As I said, though, since the themes that make up Self Help Radio make up also my made-up life, I tend to live them up until the moment I do my show. Then I must turn around & begin again. So last week I avoided everything. This week I am blossoming. Next week I will sit in a chair. But just because I live my shows in the way that so many of you choose not to doesn't mean I miss them or have great regret & rue once they're done. Indeed! I am glad to be done with avoidance. It seemed like such a waste of time.

Now, I live in a tightly prescribed circle of work commitments & looming mental ward incarceration, so I am generally free of the sort of annoyances that cause unhappiness for you who interact with more than half a dozen folks a day. So I didn't have as much to avoid. Since I work in a bureaucracy, work avoidance is part of the daily schedule. Since my relationship is stable (mainly because the girlfriend is busy not avoiding stuff), I don't have to avoid difficult talks about "the future." I avoided mentioning all this last week, but can't now. The truth must blossom & bloom!

Go now, & listen to the Self Help Radio show from last week! It will help you avoid whatever you want to avoid!