Whither Fortune Telling?

Before I started writing this blog post about this week's Self Help Radio, I was writing an email to someone who is supposed to be helping me on a project but who is totally slacking & so, I kinda drifted off into a slight daze wherein I was writing this person an email & it began, in my head, "Dear Person, I know you're as busy as a weasel just outside Denver..."

I'm not sure where that came from, so I googled "weasels" & "denver" & got a couple of hits, none of which explain my simile, but which are interesting all the same.

One: The Young Weasels, a New Wave band from twenty-five years ago. Here's an interesting sentence: "The group was an opening act for many of the touring punk bands that passed through Colorado like The Teardrop Explodes, Loverboy, and in their triumphant return to Denver in 1983 The Varve." Of course, I am a huge Varve fan, if "Varve" means a sexual act that encourages you to make a noise like "varve!" But what's intriguing to me is not that Loverboy - Lovermotherfuckingboy! - would ever be considered punk, but that they're actually, non-ironically, in the same sentence as The Teardrop Explodes. Whoever wrote this wasn't just working for the weekend - the kid was hot that night.

Two: Weasels Rocky Mountain. The Colorado version of a California motorcycle enthusiast group (there's a Texas chapter, I like them because of their tag line: "A Drinking Club With a Motorcycle Problem."

Where was I? Oh yeah, weasels. As far as I know, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, or the countless other sick bastards who practiced hepatomancy didn't cut open weasels, but if they had, it wouldn't have begun to explain why, in the middle of composing an email in one's head, one would suddenly come up with a simile like the one my brain invented as I began to write this blog post. Some might say, well, Gary, that's because hepatomancy is an art, not a science, & no one gets trained in entrails-reading any more. Good riddance I say! Well, well, well, Gary, you say, would you then destroy all the Magic 8 Balls too?

(Okay, when I start arguing with myself, it gets ugly. Just slip away. I'm sure I won't notice & if I do, I'll try to stall me. Go! Go!)

Spread Like Summer Butter

Hmm, I don't know what that means.

Here's two things though that would be sweet on bread (or salty, I guess, if I continue this increasingly uncomfortable metaphor): last week's Self Help Radio spun crazily out of control & you can listen to it without feeling the slightest bit dizzy. I encourage it.

Also, I finish March's Self Help Radio Extra if you have the gall or gumption to enjoy some nice songs mixed together without a peep from me.

I save all my peeping for the regular show.

You know what I mean.

Butter!

The Self Help Radio Email Archive Project: Submission Eight

Another flirtatious email, written over ten years ago. I quoted an entire Leonard Cohen song in the email, but I have snipped it here. Please to enjoy my shabby past.

Oh yeah, the email was called "Bum & Bummer." It's nowhere near as good an email title as one that I can't share, which I just found, called "Single White Futile." That's funny!

-----

I don't have any understanding of righteous. I once had confidence, but I lost it to a confidence man. I can't believe that there are togethers, couplings, kisses, or mooning in moonlight. I'll take it under advisement.

FIRST PLAN: Unfortunately I remember everything.

SECOND PLAN: What I want has nothing to do with anyone else.

THIRD PLAN: When all else fails, I turn to art.

FOURTH PLAN: All else has failed, now I have only art.

FIFTH PLAN: Once upon a time, long ago, probably never, a small group of very sad travellers alit on an island, whereupon they remembered their feet tingling when it touched the slightly soggy dry land. They said some sad prayers to their forgetful god, & constructed a makeshift shelter. It was a sort of home, but they found they missed the sweet sounds of the sea. They found that the stars, though they moved across the sky in their usual way, abandoned the twirling & chaotic manner they had become accustomed to on the sea, & marched straight, one side of the horizon to another.

But they got used to it & stayed there.

SIXTH PLAN: When art fails, all is lost.

SEVEN PLAN: Certainty is many-tentacled, & blows bubbles. Certainly, you can love nearly everything & everyone, but self-made monsters deserve pity, not love. One should wear crazy qualifiers like oddball fashions, culled together from here & there like thrift shop shopping sprees.

EIGHTH PLAN: Honesty is a weapon. Honesty is a flower. Honesty is a mistake. Honesty is a good idea. Honesty is impossible. Honesty is inevitable. Honesty is a dog person. Honesty is a cat person. Honesty quakes. Honesty murmurs.

NINTH PLAN: Self-serving Leonard Cohen poems are just that.

TENTH PLAN: Go ahead, ask.

Whither Spinning?

First of all, my apologies for being too exhausted to make sure the link to the Bearsuit KVRX session was correct. It wasn't. It is now. Download away!

Second of all, I don't know why I feel the need to use the phrase "second of all" when I use the phrase "first of all." Oh, wait, I do. It's like when the wife starts to say something, & she says, "One, this is what I meant to say." Then she never uses the "two." I am the opposite of that. If you say, "First of all," you need to continue the list. If you say, "A," please say "B." Etc.

Third of all, there's an old hippie song that I unfortunately have too many covers of. It goes like this:

The cripple taught us how to dance, the blind man taught us how to see
The fallen angel taught us how to fly & the prisoner taught us how to be free

And now we're spinning, spinning, spinning
Spinning, spinning through this magic land
Getting back to the beginning of the end that we once had
We're seeing how tomorrow like sparkling waves of sand
Being washed by waves of laughter, guided by the master's hand

We're dancing now we have no feet
Our eyes are gone the light shines bright
Our wings are clipped and yet we soar
& love runs free forever more

Why not come dance along with me
You'll see what's not was meant to be
We'll fly through space without a care
& free our brothers from despair

Spinning, spinning, spinning, etc.

They bothered a cripple to teach them how to dance? Fucking hippies! I bet they were making fun of him the whole time. Or would that be the slackers? Yeah, afterwards, the hippies got the cripple stoned.

In any event, I'm deeply annoyed by the line about the "master's hand." It makes the song seem a little cultish. Like "the master" (God? Sri Rajneesh? Their roadie?) needs to keep everyone a little dizzy to make them do whatever he (or she) wants them to do. It's a hippy song made almost entirely out of hemp, but boy is it theological unsound.

I know, it's mainly an exercise in a kind of Zen koan-ish play on opposites - we see better now we're blind, we dance better now that we're amputees. But the implication is that "the master" wants it this way, & that makes him kind of a cruel fucker. Also, "what's not was meant to be"? Does that mean they've got a death wish?

The last week's been a whirlwind but I'm entirely responsible for it. Besides, it's more fun to spin because you want to, not just because your cult needs you dancing a little vertigo-go to sink their medium rare philosophies.

Me, I want a merry-go-round! Not one of these. One of these!

Preface To Spinning: Hey. This Is The 600th Blog Post!

Well, then. I don't imagine there's anything else I can add. I mean, my gosh! Six hundred spots! Who knew I had six hundred of them in me? Oh my god. Maybe that's it. Maybe I can't write anything more. Maybe all I had was six hundred posts in me (& good lord some of them {like this one} were pretty crappy) & I'll have no more. Jeez! What happens if you show up to read this blog tomorrow, & there's a giant layer of dust over this site & you're all like, "What happened? Did Gary just have something like six hundred pieces of writing in him, most of them pretty dull & hopelessly self-reflexive in a way that shows that perhaps it didn't have even one hundred blog posts in them?" Would you be sad? Would you just say, "Oh well. The next six hundred might have been absolutely dreadful"? Can I apologize in either case? God, I feel bad that I am writing this at the ass-end of a Tuesday when I totally had time at 5:30 but chose instead to play a video game. This is how I celebrate my six hundredth post! This is how I choose to celebrate what may be the last ever Self Help Radio blog post! & I'm also half-listening to this Charlie Kaufman interview & not even really thinking of what I'm writing anyway!

Oh well. Happy six hundred! For me, at least. For you - I'm sorry. I think I'll end up writing more. Sorry.

Ah! No Self Help Radio Last Week!

I'm sorry, friends, I had visitors for SXSW & was too busy to do Self Help Radio last week. I'm sure it completely ruined your weekend. Or maybe you didn't know there was a Self Help Radio that goes with this blog. I perfectly understand.

However, here are two treats for your tweets.

One is Bearsuit live at KVRX during their 3x5 event during SXSW. You can listen to that awesome session at the Self Help Radio website.

Also, later that day, Boston's One Happy Island stopped by for an acoustic set & a brief, very silly interview. That's too much fun & it's also available for listening at the Self Help Radio website.

So, you can see, a lot of stuff was happening. I only wish I could have warned you sooner.

Enjoy the live radio music! It's happiness!

It May Be Quiet Around Here This Week...

There are people coming by for SXSW - staying with me, drinking my beer, hitting me repeatedly over the head with a plastic mallet. Some of them might even be in a band which I can't WAIT to see during the festival - one of the bands I played on last week's Self Help Radio. I won't tell all until they're back in their respective countries.

So please excuse this empty blog this week. I'll stop by once or twice, but the regularly scheduled nonsense has now been moved to the real world.

A Month Of Somedays

It's the week before spring break at the University where I work, so there are lots of folks leaving. Be safe on America's highways! So many people seem to die there! (It was something like thirty-five thousand last year, although that number was down because of high oil prices.)

As far as I know, no one has died listening to me on the radio. But surely that's not a good enough reason to listen! But here's one: I keep the quality of Self Help Radio consistent so you don't have to! Warning: keeping the quality "consistent" does not necessarily imply that the quality is "good." Let the caveat be emptor.

I am sleepy because I travelled back & forth from Dallas yesterday, & luckily did not die on the highway, although the highway gave its level best. Except when we were going uphill. Then it wasn't so level. Ha ha. I slay me. But I am fully recharging tonight with a bottle of something & a bite of something else that didn't come from a bottle, unless it's a sauce or something, & I'll wake up earlyish tomorrow to deliver another non-lethal dose of Self Help Radio.

That's all for this week. Next week, though, that hasn't even begun yet.

Whither SXSW 2009?

I dunno, something to wrap my head around.

Wrap is not rap, of course, but I do feel a little like doing some kind of wrap rap. I could rap about wraps, blankets, cloaks & capes, jackets & stoles, shawls & all. Or I could rap about wrapping, bundling, binding, enveloping, swaddling or swathing, putting on mufflers, scarves, clothes in layers, wrapping up for the cold, for the night, for the day. Hey! That's another kind of wrapping - wrapping up! The wrap party, where everything is ended, concluded, completed, finished, over, done. The wrap winds it all down. & the wrap-up can summarize, can sum up the run down, can give you the abstract of the real. Still, this rapper doesn't want that kind of wrapper. No sir.

I don't got no app to help me rap
About the crap around my head I wrap
Is it a trap? Be a good chap
& shut your yap. I've got to tap
Into the lagniappe, put on my thinking cap
Make a flap like a speed trap
On a weather map dangling from my shoulder strap.
Zap! I put a cap in your ass while you nap
Dripping like the sap of a tree with the clap
Somewhere in the Cumberland gap
Call your mom & pap, I'll give you the scraps
That should make you happy, snappy.
Peace. & we out.

Preface To SXSW2009: I Think I've Been Doing This For Like A Million Years

I didn't start writing this blog until it was guaranteed to be ignored by even the most learned of non-listeners, but I do recall that I wrote this last year:

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

Feh! Fie! I didn't get to leave town, & here I am doing another SXSW show.

Which is weird, because I probably won't attend anything having to do with the "festival" (surely that's a misnomer) unless it has something to do with KVRX or with my friends in Bearsuit, who I hope hope hope make it this year. If only to remind me that the love will never find me.

Oh, time. Why dost thou flow in such a meandering yet predictable course? I am remembering of course the words of the Poet who said, "Surely is time like unto a douchebag who, knowing not his dickishness, doth presume to continue in his annoying fucking manner."

Truer words were never written down. I mean it - they were never written down. I just made all that up. Seriously. I know, didn't it sound like Shakespeare or some other dumb-ass high-school-requirement writer? I can do that ALL motherfucking day long if I want. Oh & I want. I want.

What Can I Add To The Great Debate About Sex Education?

Nothing, really. I had finished my education by the time sex came around. So I didn't even get the reading list.

What I can add to is the list of bands & songs that make up the ill-defined (especially by me) genre of "indiepop." Please listen to the this week's Self Help Radio to find out what bands I consider indiepop between the letters De & Di (or so) in the most recent installment of the never-ending series "Indiepop A To Z." I believe it's the nineteenth installment. That makes it the nineteenth nervous breakdown installment. Or no, no it doesn't.

Friday Ant Talk

Not speaking of ants, should I go see the Watchmen movie? I probably will, but, really, should I?

None of this has anything to do with Self Help Radio, I know. Which will be new tomorrow afternoon, you well know. Just saying.

I describe the little ants that show up occasionally on my desk at work to remind me I'm a sloppy eater "sugar ants," & I think I heard my sister call them that when I was younger because they would, in fact, get into the sugar, but were smaller & lighter than the weird black-&-red ants that made the giant hillocks outside. But this, Wikipedia tells me, is a sugar ant. They are not on my desk. Thank god.

I googled "ants of Texas" to see what I could see & found this page: Some Problem Invertebrates of Texas. I'm all like, I know those dudes! But it's not about losers I go drinking with, it's about bugs, & the number one is not the tiny ant lingering stupidly around some soda bottle cap I need to throw away, but - you better believe it - the Rasberry Crazy Ant. Please note, not raspberry. They don't like the fruit or make the farty noise.

Aha! The ant I am seeing is called a Pharoah Ant. It doesn't say so on the Wikipedia page I link to there, but this page notes, "Also called 'sugar ants' or 'piss ants,' these are some of the smallest ants, about 1/12 to 1/16 inch long, with light tan to reddish bodies." Piss ants? Luckily for me, "These ants do not sting and usually do not bite." Because I feel them crawling all over me all the damn time.

That's all. Have a good weekend!

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 19?

My greatest fear, or my second-greatest fear, because I'm mainly afraid of bugs, is that I am getting the numbering of this Indiepop A To Z wrong. Not that it matters, of course - as long as I don't repeat myself. & I am not. In fact, I am deep in the Ds, which may sound naughty but only if you can explain to me why that would sound naughty.

What's really naughty, of course, are gargoyles. Don't believe me? Have a look at Satan In The Groin. Just try to avoid the photographer's self-portrait at the very end. It was completely unnecessary.

Where was I? I wasn't anywhere. I was somewhere in the middle of a never-ending attempt to make a gigantic list of oftentimes one-off bands (including bands that aren't technically indiepop but that have something about them that makes me think they're influential to indiepop, or influenced by indiepop, or share some of the same spirit of indiepop, or are just too adorable not to include) with virtually no one helping but me. So of course I leave a lot of stuff out. I also put a lot of stuff in that some folks would disagree with. Yet I continue. This hamster treadmill called Indiepop A To Z.

Big names this show include Depeche Mode, Devo & the Divine Comedy. I know you probably don't think two out of three of them are indiepop. Well, nyah. Make your own list. (twee.net has, & I use that, along with my record collection, as the base of my own list.) Make your own podcast! Make your own bed & sleep in it!

But do listen this week. Lists are great. Alphabetical lists are awesome. Alphabetical lists that are pretending to be comprehensive rule.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 19: What Would Piet Mondrian Do?

If you're one of the eager listeners who has already consumed last week's Self Help Radio - the one about "generations" - you're not only a member of the Self Help Radio Generation (or Gen-Help!), but you might have noticed how the hungover host, whose name is me, was a little nonplussed at the show's end about the theme of the next week's show. The host (me, remember) said, with something authority, "It'll be about south by south west. I'm sure of it!"

Well, it won't be. Sorry. SXSW '09 happens in like two weeks or something. I'll give my recommendations for bands & shows in the next show, next week. This week, I'm continuing with the indiepop a to zs, which I had planned for the next week, the week of SXSW. Now that week will have something else. Oh my achin' noggin!

Why did I make sure a mistake? Is it all that cough syrup I keep freebasing? I hope not! What would I do without my Robitussin high?

Is it old age? Did I have a "senior moment"? What if I just feel a little sophomoric? Or am I being too fresh, man? Watch, it junior! Puns are for geeks & loners!

It is not my inability to stop misusing over-the-counter drugs, nor is it my impending descent into early-onset Alzheimer's. It's something more inane: I have trouble reading a calendar. There! I said! Thirty days has September, blah-dee-blah, what? Hunh? Take pity on me! The days of the week merge into one, the weeks of the year melt into two, the months of the year blur into four, all the way up to millenia cubed! It's not my fault! Some people are dyslexic. I am calendarlexic. & that bodes ill for planned shows.

But I just smoked some Nyquil, so I'll be able to handle the pressure of this week's show.

Contraceptive Education On A Sunday Morning

Imagine! The scandal! The information! The Hollywood!

As the co-creator & line producer for the hit new religious/fantasy (okay, the words mean the same thing) show, "Contraceptive Education On A Sunday Morning," I am pleased that our pilot episode, "Surgical Solutions For Contraception," struck such a chord with the usually devout church-going Sunday morning sex education crowd. Already, the death threats are pouring in. For example, one Adam C of Pflugerville writes daintily: "You will burn in HELL you SATANIC FAGOT!" He also included a self-addressed stamped envelope for a copy of the show's transcript, which he hopes he can burn in the soonest bonfire his congregation can organize, which should be any day now, since football season is over.

We here at "Contraceptive Education On A Sunday Morning" are proud to announce, barely moments after the first series was cancelled, to creating & filming as we speak a spin-off called "Teenagers! Have Sex Without All The Fuss Of Marriage & Commitment!", a new weekly series airing around the same time everyone in church is either extremely bored or seething with limitless rage. We intend to have "Teen Profligate" clubs in high schools as soon as possible, which will include great tee shirts to counter those of the abstinence-only clubs. In fact, we hope to have shirts that says stuff like "Why Be A Pussy & Wait To Get Some Pussy?" No sexists or homophobes we! We plan for an girl/male homosexual version that says "Why Be A Dick & Wait To Get Some Dick?" It is our great hope that organizations like True Love Waits will engage in friendly rivalries with the Teen Profligates but in case it all goes south, we're also teaching self-defense classes & issuing all members an unlicensed firearm.

So much work to do, & none of it has anything to do with this week's Self Help Radio, which was all about the generations. It shall ring forth through the generations, as well, but for right now, those of the greatest current generation can listen to it at selfhelpradio.net.

It has nothing to do with sex education. I don't know why you thought that.

Your Thursday Treat At The Ass End Of Friday

Now, normally you get your Friday treat on Saturday with the week's Self Help Radio (which of course will drop sometime tomorrow afternoon & which will be all about every generation ever). & normally, a Thursday treat comes on a Thursday. But today I am forced to give you a Thursday treat on a Friday, defying all conventions of polite society & insulting all that is sacred & respectful to those who hold common courtesy dear.

Luckily, it's a good treat. There's a well-respected show on KVRX called The Afro Boogaloo Soul Revue which happened this week to be guest-hosted by my sometime therapist & all-time carpentry helper, Dick Dickenbock. He's proud of the show, which he managed to do despite having taken too many tylenol day-caplets & forced to sit next to a tall kid named Jason the entire time, so he asked if I could put it up for his mother & the rest of the world to hear. I did.

It's around the corner at selfhelpradio.net. Dick Dickenbock says, "You're welcome."

God I hate him sometimes.

Another Special Thursday Treat!

...delayed!

That's right! I had a terrific Thursday Treat (tm) for your sweet tooth (even the sweet tooth in your mind) - but only conceptually! It will take a little bit of time before it's actually prepared. It's like I invited you over for cake, but you got here at the right time only I just had a big bowl full of dough. & while I'm pretty sure you'd just eat the dough (& get salmonella), I can't afford to waste a few hours in the emergency room with you today.

I also can't afford to waste a few hours to (completing my metaphor) make your cake. Sorry! But it would have been a surprise, wouldn't it? You weren't expecting it, were you? Then why do I feel like apologizing? Because - I know you like cake.

I'll have it for you tomorrow. Just in time for the dentist on Monday. Okay, that metaphor has gone too far. Let me rephrase:

I'll have it for you tomorrow. Just in time for the therapist on Monday.

That's better!

Whither Generations?

No, I don't mean Star Trek: Generations. I would never do a radio show about that movie. The lighting on the main deck is so damn dark!

By the way, the IMDb score for that movie is 6.4. That's the same score for The Phantom Menace. Imagine! & Star Wars fans think that Star Trek fans are delusional!

Luckily, they now have to contend with Battlestar Galactica fans. Until the new Star Trek movie. Damn!

As for generations, look. We were once all part of the Pepsi Generation. Before that, I think we were part of the Coffee Generation. Now that we've finished Generations X, Y, XY, YY & Z, we need to take some stock. We need to add more letters to the alphabet. May I suggest dek, el, & doh? No one is using them for their little twelvetoes, so why can't we add them to the alphabet so we can have three more generations?

I know, we may not have many more generations, not at the rate you're drinking whiskey. Not at the speed you're driving. But isn't it just the way? The minute someone comes along, someone called Self Help Radio, & he or she or it (or she-it) decides to name & number & celebrate & commemorate the "generations" that came before, generations stop being generated. It makes me worry, you know, about all those reproducers out there. Did they save their receipts?

It's bad planning all around, frankly. Let's make sure it's badly executed!

Preface To Generations: Spontaneous!

From this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_generation:

Spontaneous generation is an obsolete theory regarding the origin of life from inanimate matter, which held that this process was a commonplace & everyday occurrence. The theory was synthesized by Aristotle; it held sway for two millennia. It is generally accepted to have been ultimately disproven in the 19th Century by the experiments of Louis Pasteur, expanding upon the experiments of other scientists before him. Ultimately, it was succeeded by germ theory & cell theory.

The disproof of ongoing spontaneous generation is no longer controversial, now that the life cycles of maggots & other pests have been well documented. However, the question of abiogenesis, how living things originally arose from non-living material, remains relevant today.

The show this week has nothing to do with this kind of generation, unless someone is planning on calling a group of people born around the same time in the same cultural milieu the "spontaneous generation," which they probably shouldn't.

Instead, I am reminded of a story about a kid who went to my elementary school named Chuck who remained forever infamous (until he disappeared some time in the fifth grade) because he happened to be called "Chuck" when we as second graders had discovered the word "upchuck," a euphemism for vomiting that would later be superseded by the Valley Girl/Simpsons-approved "hurl." Anyway, whenever our teacher Mrs Chumley would say the word "up," those of us too precious for our own good would say, as fast as possible, "chuck." Chumley shut us down after about five minutes of this nonsense, but the boy Chuck showed up around the same time, so we took to muttering "up" to ourselves whenever she called on Chuck.

Chuck looked like he stepped out of a fifties sitcom, but poorer & dirtier. Even though I was probably equally poor, I wasn't unbelievably dumb & didn't sound like a redneck, which, unfortunately for Chuck, he did, & since I sounded more middle class than he did (& was probably also cleaner), I was spared the sort of ridicule Chuck got.

One day, sitting outside school for some reason, I noticed a dead squirrel in the bushes covered in flies & other bugs, & was doing what kids do, picking at it with a stick, when Chuck walked by, noticed me just staring there, & came to look at what I was looking at, like kids do. In probably the first (& last) words he ever spoke to me, he said, "That's how they're made." I said, "What?" He said, "Bugs. Bugs come from dead things." I said, "Bugs lay eggs." He said, "They do?" I said, "Sure." He said, "I thought dead things died & then bugs came from inside-a them." I said, "I think bugs lay eggs."

So Aristotle was alive & well in Garland, Texas, in 1975. As a side note, I wonder if Chuck has ever had any reason to write or think about that time in his life, let alone some fat kid he once saw poking around a dead squirrel. Probably not.

The Lack Of Sleep Produces Dreamless Monsters

Do I mention you can listen to last week's Self Help Radio, which is about hospitals & also about ninety minutes long, in the regular place? Did I mention it's mandatory? Oh, & it's not a substitute for real treatment. Jesus, see your doctor already.

Should I mention I'll be subbing for the show the Afro Boogaloo Soul Revue tonight on 91.7 fm KVRX? I've been told it's a good Christian show with plenty of family values. That's a good fit for me, I believe.

Can I make a bunch of excuses for the lameness of the upcoming posts, & also say that the uninspired nature of the ones that precede this have also been affected by whatever I choose to blame on them? Will you ever forgive me? What did I ever do to you? As you get older, you get more scary. Not necessary more ugly or anything silly like that, but definitely more scary.

Ought I continue along in this manner? It's a little too precious, or insulting, or ignorant, isn't it. I completely concur. Also I disagree. This is what you get from me? Cancel your subscription! Just don't walk away mad. My love.

Buh

This blog isn't much, & it's not even the only blog I have, but I hate that I've been neglecting it. I'm just very busy. Do you want to know WHY I am so busy? Because I have been designated by the Planet's Corporate Overlords to officially Pay Attention to the Dying American Culture. Can you imagine how long that takes? I can barely keep up with my dogs when they're telling me all about their day (apparently there are at least fifty different ways to nap) - now I have to keep a little notebook (which keeps getting filled up, which I then have to feed to the Evil Troll that guards the Magic Treasure at the Center of the World - remind me to tell you about that dipshit some day) documenting the things that indicate that America - & really, Western - culture is on its last legs. I mean, why couldn't I just be in charge of the reality television division? But no, it's all of it. Books, movies, music, television, blogs, facebook posts, myspace drivel, cheese shop flyers, messages sent by traffic lights into schizophrenics, all of it. I am documenting the Decline of Our Way Of Life.

Between that & work, I don't hardly have any time to write in this blog. I'm sorry.

I still have a little time to do Self Help Radio. There's a new one tomorrow. It's another indication of the sorry state of our culture, I know. I have to write it in the notebook.

Whither Hospitals?

I'm sure there are a billion good reasons why I wanted to do a show about hospitals, but of course no reason that would land me in a hospital, which I (thankfully) haven't visited in many years now, I believe it was an ER visit in erm perhaps 2003. I'm sure however that I have hospital visits in my future (don't we all) even if it's the last place I end up because of an accident. But none of that is important until Saturday when I put the show together. Because right now, I have something special for youse at selfhelpradio.net!

That's right, it's Luxuriator on Local Live! But none of those links lead to the show (which also features an interview with the band done by ME), only this one. So go listen & enjoy the flourishing of smart & independent music in Austin!

Or I swear to god I'll put you in the hospital!

Preface To Hospitals: I Spent The Day In A Hospital In College Station

It's true. But it wasn't a human hospital. It was an animal hospital. Or an animal clinic. It had an emergency room. Does it make it a hospital if it has an emergency room? It had doctors. Oh, oh! & it had a dentist! That's why we were there!

Oh, & it's "we" because it was Magda & me. & three dogs. Our three dogs. Not just three dogs we picked up at the 290/21 intersection. We didn't have room for them. Plus, I thought they looked kind of shifty.

Anyway, our youngest (mine & Magda's), he's a dwarf beagle, & there's something I'm not smart enough to understand about dwarf beagle teeth (or, truth be told, normal beagle teeth) (though of course no beagle is normal, am I right?) so we needed to take him to the special dentists at Texas A&M.

That's why we were there. He got his teeth cleaned at a dog hospital.

I bought a book about spelling & read it in the dog hospital lobby. Then drove home in the misty rain.

Valentine's Autopsy

Lieutenant, the manufactured holiday went smoothly this year. Less romance, because of less presents, because of less money. Pornography was reported to have been watched in staggering numbers, mainly with rue but also perhaps with regret. Flowers bought reportedly died much sooner than in previous years, although alcohol consumption enabled many to dispute the fact. Singles bars, online dating sites, & church socials on the date all filed reports about a thin, slightly acrid-smelling layer of membrane-like goo which covered everything, from participants to party favors. We sent samples to the lab. We should be hearing from them shortly.

One strange thing, your honor, which I hesitate to bring before the court - well, this thing called Self Help Radio. While not a suspect, Mr. Help Radio apparently has an obsession with the manufactured holiday which has manifested itself in producing obscure "radio shows" about the subject on or about the day of the manufactured holiday every year for roughly six years now. Recommend cursory listening to "Valentine's Day" show of 02142009 (subject "boyfriends") in order to assess possible involvement in manufactured holiday. Please advise.

Also, Sarge, we got you this box of chocolates & a dozen tea roses. The department's consensus is that we love you.

A Valentine's Geegaw

Because I love you, please visit the Self Help Radio Website tomorrow for a special Self Help Radio show & Self Help Radio Extra mix - the show will be nothing but a continuous blast of music for about ninety minutes featuring nothing but songs about boyfriends. No annoying Gary blathering, just lots of songs about loving your boyfriend, hating your boyfriend, wanting a boyfriend, not wanting a boyfriend, your boyfriend cheating on you, you cheating on your boyfriend - all for Valentine's Day. What luck! What fun!

I hope to have it up for you first thing tomorrow, but you know, the best laid plans of the worst laid men... Or how does that go?

So even if you don't have a valentine - & I can't anymore, because I'm married - you can have a Valentine's Day show from Self Help Radio. Yay! It'll be like chocolate, only without all the teeth-rotting.

Whither Boyfriends?

Because it's Valentine's Day & I have to do a show about SOMETHING.

That's the straightest answer you'll ever get out of me. & yeah, what the hell, we'll do girlfriends next year.

That kinda came out the wrong way. You knew what I meant.

Damn.

Preface To Valentine's Day 2009: Boyfriend No More!

If I am no longer a boyfriend can I successfully do a show about boyfriends? No! Because the minute I got married, all the memories of being a boyfriend vanished! Wait, that's not true. Yes! Because all my years of being a boyfriend added up to the experience of being trapped into marriage! Damn, that makes no sense. No! I am boyfriend no more! Yes! I was boyfriend before husband, & lo I could be there again!

But I'll try. I'll try to remember the blissful uncertain unmarried state called "Boyfriendliness." "Boyfriendship." "Significant Otherness." "Significant Otherwise." "Insignificant Otter." Stuff like that.

& it's not so hard, in the end, because there are lots of songs about it. That's helpful. There are many more songs, in fact, about the travails of being a boyfriend than the travails I went through as someone or other's boyfriend. For example, I was never another boy's boyfriend, & I have some songs about that. So. My own experience is useless. It is the songs that speak through the mighty megaphone that is "Self Help Radio." Huzzah!

Still, being a boyfriend isn't all that different from being a husband, except, of course, the chains are a lot heavier. Also, the gruel is less salty. Then there's making the bed. That is the worst. [Voices trails off, spouting ridiculous & embarrassingly sexist oversimplifications.] [So you know what to expect this week.] [Just saying.]

Valley Churl

I'm so busy I feel sleepy all the time. Actually, that's not only true, that's the introductory dialogue for a series of pharmaceutical arias I am composing for the "Drug Opera" I am writing thanks to my grant from Pfizer. Who says art is dead? Pfizer says art is dead!

Where was I? Oh, I spent the weekend down at the ranch in Self Help Radio Valley, population wow. Did my show from there live, actually, to the emus that live next door after they escaped from someone's failed get-rich-quick plan or another's cockeyed scheme. They're very nice but tone deaf. & they don't so much dance as come at you menacingly & steal your cheese fries from your hand. They're not nearly as melancholy as the cattle, though. Those damn Morrissey-worshippers get mad if I play anything peppy. & let's not talk about the goats & their obsession with metal. (That's a pun.)

Anyhoos, you can listen to the show at Self Help Radio Dot Net. You have an official invitation. Also to my ranch in Self Help Radio Valley. If you can find it. & if you bring cheese fries.

Not At Library To Say

By these shackles I wear around my pants, I say to you I SHALL BE FREE!

Sorry, I've been reading a lot of comic books lately. I think I might have also had a dream about Jack Kirby last night. Ah well.

Here are things I'm planning this weekend. I am planning on not getting stabbed. (That's ongoing.) I am planning to finish this week's Self Help Radio by the middle of the day tomorrow, before it gets stabbed. I'll be holding the teleprompter for the freaky Vance Chamberlain for his "The War On Sailing" radio show on KVRX on Sunday morning. I plan to stalk you on Facebook, so really, stop sharing everything. That photo of you with the puke in your hair? It's not cute.

Um. I plan to eat cheese fries with my nephew tonight, then to regret eating those cheese fries because of all the beer & jalapeños I washed the cheese fries down with. I plan to scold my dogs & praise my cats. I plan to read something I'm supposed to read although I probably won't. Somewhere in there, I plan to fall down a flight of stairs just to say I did. Or not, to say I didn't. I also plan at one point to get exasperated & say, "I've only got two hands!" Maybe during a card game? Who knows?

I'm not trying to impress. You got something better? What're you going to do that's so exciting?

Sheesh.

Whither Valleys?

Lee Majors hater step off!

My name is Gary & I spend a good deal of bad time every week working on a podcast which I call Self Help Radio. (Yes, you can listen to it at selfhelpradio.net.) Every week something is something that I something something somethinged. The show stays fresh & new by eating weird fruits & watching exercise shows on demand. One day, it must've been in my sophomore year of college, I realized that what I was most of the time was depressed. At that very moment, somewhere far away, Huey Lewis (of Huey Lewis & The News) took a great big shit that looked & sounded eerily like Billy Joel. On my desk at home, a Stephen R. Donaldson book began to decompose at thirty-three times its natural rate.

Which is not to say y'all can't hate Lee Majors. Y'all just better not be doin' it round here.

Two days after my apparent wedding I was visited by two federal agents designed as evangelicals. It was days before Christmas & I was about to go skeet shooting. The past week's Self Help Radio had had an uncommon theme, if I recall correctly & I don't, whereas the theme the previous week had been all commonalities. These communist Christians were completely unable to sense that my worldview sounded funky while their attempt to add the "personal touch" to proselytizing stank. We became fast friends & even faster enemies - when I grabbed my skeet rifle you should've seen them run! Har har har!

But I wasn't destined for the movies or for horseplay. When my resume came back unopened, I wondered - aloud, yes, but quietly, as if I were in a library or a mongoose cafe - why Barack Obama wouldn't want me in his cabinet, or at his table, or living in the storeroom above his garage. There are many reasons in life for a man to feel his masculinity wasn't manly enough, & time is literally the great emasculator, but at that moment I realized that not only was I destined to live alone for at least the times of my life that I was by myself, but also that a political viewpoint is no substitute for an articulated skeleton.

& as for dear, dear Mr Lee Majors. I'm no fool. I know there are major Lee Majors haters. I went through the same thing in my Caldecott-prize nominated children's stinker called "Having T with Mr T: Reforming Television's Hard-Core Bruiser for the Spongepants Generation." Mr. T haters die a suspicious death. Lee Majors haters live in no fear. That's how great is the kindness & sleepiness of the Lee Majors. Bless him.

& bless us all, everyone!

Preface To Valleys: Lee Majors

Here's what a fellow named Ed Stephan wrote (on the IMDb) was the "plot" of the television series "The Big Valley," which aired in the mid- to late-sixties, & starred one of childhood heroes, Lee Majors: "Victoria Barkley heads her adult brood on the Barkley Ranch in California's San Joaquin Valley, near Stockton, in the 1870s. Heath is the illegitimate son of Victoria's husband Tom (who is dead at the time of the series). Bank robbers, horse thieves, revolutionaries & land grabbers keep the Barkleys hopping." Revolutionaries! I need to see this series again.

I love Lee Majors in the same way I love Mr. T & Evel Knievel, simply for his role in "The Six Million Dollar Man," which left an indelible imprint on me as a kid. Add to it that he played "The Fall Guy," a show that I never understood was supposed to be a comedy (that's how awful it was) & then of course he was married to Farrah Fawcett, who was supposed to be pretty so as a kid I thought she was pretty, well, there you are: a cool hero to my pantheon.

Not only that: his characters always had cool names. On "The Big Valley," he was Heath. (Also, he was a bastard, which I maybe didn't know exactly what that meant, but what the hell, it was fun to say.) On "The Six Million Dollar Man" he was "Colonel Steve Austin." Even on "The Fall Guy," he was "Colt Seavers."

Each of his three major television series - one for the 60's, one for the 70's, one for the 80's - lasted at least one hundred episodes. For "The Six Million Dollar Man" he also did three TV movies. Besides William Shatner (who of course became an icon by playing Captain Kirk & also made Star Trek movies, so he's kinda in a class by himself), is there any other cheesy television action show actor who was as long-lived with three television projects? I can't think of one...

Hooray for Lee Majors! Wow, he's about to turn seventy years old! It was fun to see him on "Weeds" this last season. Maybe someone should tell David Kelley to get him on "Boston Legal." I'll go write a letter now.

Like A Ton Of Tricks

This is my not-clever day. Nothing I do today will be clever. I won't write anything clever, nor will I, should you by chance run into me on the street on in the late-night drinking bars, say anything clever. The most clever thing I did today was wake up in time to feed the animals. That's as clever as I got. Not very clever, I know. I mean, Jesus! Look at the title of this post. That's not only not clever, it's a stupid pun that doesn't make any sense.

Do you want to know WHY I'm not clever today. It's easy. I out-clevered myself doing last week's Self Help Radio. It's well-known that I do the show only because of some incriminating evidence my corporate warlords have about my sinful past - & it's also well-known that I am mainly a tax write-off for them, although recently I've been touted as a community service project as well - "See how well the mentally challenged can do radio?" Knowing all that, there's virtually no reason for me to ever be clever for Self Help Radio.

But it sometimes happens. Don't believe me? Go listen to Self Help Radio for last week. Just do it. Then you decide. It's up to you.

This offer not valid with folks who've never found anything I've done to be clever.

The Ungainly Return Of "Self Help Radio Extra"

Yes, yes, I missed it in December, but in my defense, I got married, divorced, married to a bigamist, divorced from reality, married someone who wasn't divorced on a reality show, & fell asleep at the wheel. But now! At the ass end of an historic month in a year that is not a prime number, here's this month's Self Help Radio Extra, featuring stuff by the Guild League, The Secret History, Cruiser, Indurain, & other music that see-saws between indie pop & indie rock in a slightly lopsided manner which indicates I get very little sleep & don't help myself when I don't close my eyes. Go listen to the mix now! It's like Self Help Radio but without all my dull airbreaks.

Speaking of closing my eyes, that's the next Self Help Radio, available all over the place tomorrow afternoon at you-know-where. See you there & have a nice weekend!

Whither Close Your Eyes?

I don't like that subject line. It doesn't, as they say, parse. Not even in the mouth of a nonsense-king.

Incidentally, I once knew a nonsense-king, long before one of them was chosen to be President of the United States by a group of old people in robes. He always had egg on his face - literally. I never once saw him eating eggs, but there was always some part of an egg - a flake of scrambled, some gooey yolk, even bits of shell - somewhere on his face. Maybe it was his thing. Also, he didn't smell bad. You'd think someone dressed in a crazy outfit acting like a ridiculous monarch might be too insane to indulge in personal hygiene, especially since he had food particles on his face, but he always smelled like a freshly-washed dog from one of those doggy-day-care places. Maybe it was the flea shampoo.

Anyway, the nonsense-king never said things correctly. Not like double negatives, you know, stuff like, "I ain't got nothing." I don't mind that. Nor did he split infinitives or other arbitrary silliness that makes grammarians unhappy. No, he just would construct sentences, simple sentences, that didn't sound right. "I want to isn't it home," he said. Or "This basket is rifening with put it ins." Or "Cross my crackers, I haven't looked since eyes to eyes!" Things that were kind of nonsensical, but you knew what he was getting at. Still. They just didn't parse.

No wonder he was deposed!

What was I going on about? Oh crap! I have to go to the bank. Save a space for me, will you? I don't want to miss this next part.

Preface To Close Your Eyes: Tic Tic Tic

According to OmDict, the "human-edited, online medical dictionary," a fasciculation is "a local & fine involuntary muscle contraction." They are distinguished from "tics" by being "typically visible underneath the skin" but "not strong enough to move a limb." They're also known as "muscle twitches."

A tic is a whole other banana. A tic is (according to Wikipedia) "a sudden, repetitive, nonrhythmic, stereotyped motor movement or vocalization involving discrete muscle group." Tics can move a limb - they can be hardcore. Oh, & there's also a wonderful section on the Tourette's page which talks about "some confusion in media portrayals of tics."

Anyway, back to fasciculations. If you have them, it may be because you don't get enough magnesium. You also may be drinking too much caffeine, or you may be dehydrated, or it may be plain old stress. Don't drink so much coffee! Drink some more water! Close your eyes & relax!

Except when I have twitches, I can't close my eyes. It makes me notice them more. It's a vicious circle.

By the way, does anyone know how to search that OmDict thing? I can't figure it out.

Several Circumstances Later

So I'm sitting outside in the rain with only a dollar to my name looking to hitchhike from Des Moines to any place but Des Moines & I end up in Iowa City drunk, dressed like Gabor Szabo, constructing car bombs with a veteran of one Iraqi incursion or another who's convinced I can help him meet Martin Lawrence if only we can blow up the Royal Gorge Bridge. Some uncomfortable moments of silence occur until he realizes he's got at least half a carton of DayQuil left, & soon enough we're watching some Ben Affleck movie on a portable DVD player in the back of a Madison, Wisconsin, pedi-cab being furiously pedaled by the young hippie on whom my companion has his gun trained. Convinced through imperfect evidence that the world will end if we don't destroy the twin lakes, I drag a carload of C4 into Lake Monona, & he straps two hundred sticks of dynamite onto his chest & descends into Lake Mendota, but curious fate intervenes & I am bludgeoned by two male strippers dressed as cops but with real nightsticks who wanted to skinny dip but didn't want me to watch.

I wake up for reasons best explained by the dearth of cheap pharmaceuticals in a Kenora, Ontario, hospital while a trained monkey lies about my citizenship as I can't fill out the forms with the ink damage to my hands. During a consult which quickly devolves into a heated discussion about Hockey Night In Canada, I hide in a candy-striper's drink-cart & hand-paddle it the 126 miles to Winnepeg, where I am quickly given the keys to the city & a grant to continue my performance art. I blow through the grant double-time because it's Canadian money & am found later in Hollywood sleeping in John Carpenter's office apparently after a failed movie pitch which sounded an awful lot like "They Live" because I was reading the script off his coffee table.

Arrested for vagrancy, I plead nolo contendere & ask if they'd fly Alan Shore from Boston to defend me. I am given an embarrassing psychological exam in front of the tainted potential jury pool for no other reason than to humiliate me, & the judge grants a mistrial then, in an unprecedented move, finds me guilty of "Existence With Malice Aforethought." A brief tour of celebrity chat shows follows, in which I am often mistaken for the guy that brings the weird birds & insects, & Tyra Banks beats the living hell out of me. One residual check after another appears in my mother's mailbox & I discover I am the star of a hit television sitcom in which I have never appeared. John Ashcroft is reportedly a fan.

Stumbling home for a well-earned rest I instead work feverishly to make the week's Self Help Radio, which, for all intents & purposes, is about gum. I finished it on Saturday. It's available at selfhelpradio.net. It still smells a little sweaty. You might want to run it through the washer a couple of times. It's a hard life on the road. I don't apologize for it.

Now ANYONE Can Do It!

They couldn't before, but they can now! What was stopping everyone previously has subsequently been removed! The obstacles placed in the way have been cleared! The road is open & therefore it's smooth sailing from now on! Nothing stands in their way! Nothing can stop them now! They have cleared a path! Straight on, through the horizon! Hooray for them!

Of course, the only thing truly stopping them was their own fears & doubts, as they could have done it at any time. Yet they didn't, & there are many reasons for it, but all reasons led back to their own perceived failures & insecurities. A sense of failed strength led to a sense of failed desire, which accounted for the blocks & hurdles which seemed to bar all action.

But no more! No more excuses! No more lies! No more hesitation! No more prevarication! No more obfuscation! No more lack of imagination! No more recrimination, remonstration, commiseration! This is the time! This is the place! This is the moment! This is the hour! This is the day! This is the point in time when the realization hits: anyone can do it!

Sometimes, though, such self-assurance burns itself out like a cheap firework. But not today! Now that self-evaluation is justified. Goodness gracious, anyone can do it! From the lowest high to the loftiest filth! It is within everyone's reach & grasp. I swear. I promise. I dare. I admonish. Better than hopes, cheaper than dreams - anyone can do it!

Now if I could only figure out WHAT. Oh well. It's enough that I've assured everyone they do it. Stay tuned to Self Help Radio for developments.

The Curse Of The Invisible Tent

GARY, Texas – Inebriated Dairy Queen workers hurled rancid milkshakes & aspersions at random livestock & their owners here during increasingly baffling demonstrations this week over bumper stickers & their incorrect placement on parts of the car/truck/SUV/motorcycle besides the bumper.

The Gary, Texas, Sheriff's Assistant Department refused to open its doors Wednesday & old Mr. Johnson's recently repainted barn was mocked in his neighbor's blog.

Demonstrators are calling for "sanity" & "more sugar," but stopped to watch television Wednesday night, since someone Tivoed last week's episode of "CSI" which was the last featuring William Peterson as Gil Grissom. But the crowd, an hour drunker than when the show started, seemed unimpressed with Peterson's replacement, Laurence Fishburne, most famous from the "Matrix" movies.

As the Gary Monthly Informer is reporting on its website today, protesters have been gathering irregularly – and, until recently, not-falling-down drunk – following a heated discussion in a bar about bumper stickers in October. Demonstrators say the crisis could have been prevented if Gail Worth had simply placed her "My Child Is An Honor Student" on her "god-damned" bumper instead of leaving it taped inside the rear window.

The protests subsided during the Christmas season, in part because it cut into the town's drinking time, but other local Avon saleswomen decided to follow Worth's lead. During the bi-monthly Mary Kay/Avon summit at the local Grandy's, demonstrators happened by. Johnny "Boy" Gleason, a local meth entrepreneur, thought everyone was celebrating the inauguration of President Barack Obama & decided to join in.

"I know, it's stupid, it's the middle of nowhere Texas, man," Gleason said. "Everyone here thinks he's a Muslim."

But it was discovered that the event in Washington, D.C., “had absolutely nothing to do with the situation here,” Gleason said Wednesday night, as he urinated on the burned-out husk of Mrs. Worth's SUV. “I have no idea what the hell happened.”

Protesters eventually passed out on some scrub land neared the intersection of 2260 & Sante Fe Street, but not before a group of high-school drop-outs managed to consume (& sometimes toss at passing cars) wine coolers, leftover egg nog, &, very surprisingly, skyr (an Icelandic dairy product). A group of truckers who were sick & tired responded with pepper spray & those little green bibles that just contain the New Testament.

Between 20 and 30 protesters were allowed to sleep it off in a nearby pasture, according to eye witnesses. At least six were thought to be more high than drunk. Two were described by a passing dermatologist as "seriously wasted."

Although many here claim to be expressing anger and sadness over automobile decorations, some townsfolk have noted an unexpected benefit of the protests: They’ve helped pull the town together. According to a letter in the Informer, “It is the first time in Gary's history that an over-medicated high school student can well expect to meet his under-medicated teacher in the crowd fucking shit up at the same time, even while grading standardized tests. Our society is surely hanging by a thin thread and might collapse at any moment.”

If Gary, Texas, succumbs to anarchy, it will be just another failure in what some are calling the "crisis in Texas' smallest towns." Gary has long been the poster child for places it's better to drive through than hang around, but now discussion of surrounding the town with a moat (full of crocodiles) & a barbed-wire fence are gaining more credence from nearby communities, who are understandably dismayed & frightened by this weird turn of events.

Whither Gum?

Los Angeles, 2002. A city under siege. A city under water. The great floods of 2002 submerged the entire Western Seaboard. Movie stars grow gills to continue filming - but mainly in Vancouver. Hollywood is lost forever.

In Atlántico, Columbia, a door slams. A man with guaranteed no relation to but looking an awful lot like Fyvush Finkel reads his local newspaper worriedly. An itinerant soap-box repairman & bastard son to the best friend of the prostitute who serviced the the disgruntled employees fired during the well-publicized Company Snit in 1915 which resulted in the consolidation of power of William Wrigley, Jr. of the world's chewing gum resources, this sensitive & melancholy soul naturally had gum on his mind. He wondered, "Can gum save America's entertainment industry?"

West Virginia, 2013. A state ignored by the country in which it dwells. Years of isolation & self-abuse worry the leaders of the state, who have been starting fires & collapsing mines to get media attention. A door slams.

Whether it's chicle, or whether it's plastic, the ingredients speak to the hearts &/or the minds of the afflicted. Gum! Gum! Can you save us, O Gum? By gum, gum can save us! Three cheers for gum! Just don't get any on your shoes. Spit it into the wrapper & throw the wrapper away. Just like that. Sure. Oh, gross. Just. Just throw it away. God.

This future could be our future. This future might just be your future. But for the grace of gum go we. So have some gum. Have some. Gum. In case you're allergic, try hypoallergenic gum. I just invented it. Tastes like ass, but it's gum. So have some. Gum. Gum. Gum.

Also, gum cures all ills. There. I've said it. Although not all dental ills. I'm not going on record with that one. Gum.

Preface To Gum: What's That On Your Shoe?

An Ode To Gum
by N. Awful Poet

Oh gum! Oh gum!
From whence do you come?
Give me some.
Bubble gum, chewing gum,
Xanthan gum, spirit gum...
Some for eating, with your chum;
Some for adhering, rule of thumb -
I bang the drum for gum gum gum!

Look, I don't want to sound dumb
But for a reasonable sum
Don't be sad! Don't be glum!
I can buy you lots of gum.

I hear you hum -
In the slum with all the scum -
You can't stay mum!
You must succumb!
I will let gum your heartstrings strum!
You can't be numb to the wiles of gum!

No? I can't even give you a crumb
of gum?
You'd say "Yum!"
Oh well, I could say, "How come?"
But I can see you're just a bum
Drinking plum rum.

Can I have some?

Long Weekend, Short Story

I am a sleepy man as I have been in meetings all day & also went to bed late all night. Woke up early, too, & generally did not sleep well. Dreamt of covering my hands in plaster. Or getting my hands covered in plaster. Because of touching a fellow who was covered in plaster. Who kinda reminded me of Daniel Johnston. Without the menthol cigarettes.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. I'll be waking up early again tomorrow to help my friend & ex-lawyer Dick Dickenbock do another four hour shift on KVRX tomorrow. From five to nine am. You can listen online or on radio at 91.7fm. Why does he need my help? I dunno. He can't seem to do them by himself. I think he gets paid by the American Disabilities Act to do radio or something. His disability? Born without irony. It's a sadness.

Then I'll run home (on my sore ankle) & work on tomorrow's Self Help Radio, which should be on the website sometime in the early evening. I've been sleepy, you see, & sleepiness is not conducive to timeliness. Ask Rip Van Winkle! If he's awake.

Have a happy long weekend! I'll write again when we have a new president!

Whither 1973?

Please note: this article was supposed to appear yesterday, but, due to unforeseen laziness (well, we would have seen it coming if we had been paying attention), it appears today. Our apologies if it still smells a little Wednesdayish.

I was five years old, officially, in 1973. My family, which had been fatherless since '72, was living in some poverty in an apartment complex on Kingsley Avenue in Garland, Texas, a growing suburb of Dallas, then numbering about 80,000 souls. My two oldest siblings were able to fend for themselves, being out of school & stuff like that, but that left my mother & me & three brothers & a sister. To this day I can't imagine how my mother managed it, although I do know the older two brothers still at home worked some.

I have no specific memories of being five. I do remember, in hazy contours like a screen-shot of a movie fade-out, the design of the apartment complex, although those memories mingle with others from my early teens when I had a paper route that brought me back there. I wish I could remember playmates, smells, actual events, but I only have stories I've been told over & over, mostly embarrassing, some outright awful.

I think you're supposed to start kindergarten at five, & if so, I definitely did not. One of the stories that I don't remember much about is that I was taken to kindergarten every day for a week & I screamed until I was taken out. It was decided (ah, the innocence of the school system before No Child Left Behind) that I could skip kindergarten if I couldn't handle it. This kind of pissed off my little brother, who had to go to kindergarten the next year when I, despite some hesitation, made it through the first day of first grade. He has never forgiven me. I think it was another in an endless supply of proof that I was valued more than him.

As noted above, these days have a kind of sepia tinge, & I do wish I could go back there & have a look around, see what things did in fact smell like & feel like & look like. I wonder if I'd be reminded of certain sensations, or if it would all seem strange & new.

Whatever else was going on the world in 1973, the five-year-old me paid absolutely no attention to.

Preface To 1973: A Year That Is Also A Prime Number Is A Wonder To Behold

You know what prime numbers are, yeah? They're natural numbers which have only two divisors, themselves & one. (A number like 12 has six: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12. A number like 2 has two: 1, 2. So 2 is a prime number.) Human beings have been fascinated by prime numbers since they had a little leisure time to while away with mathematics. I like them for no apparent reason, which is all right by me.

In a week, my age becomes a prime number, too. I'd like to attach (for the hell of it) some numerological significance to being that age, but as I look over my life I realize that prime number years weren't necessarily the best years of my life. This last year, for example, for all of its changes & weirdnesses & what-not, was a pretty good year. & it wasn't prime, not hardly. So the "prime is primo" theory doesn't hold water.

Prime numbers get more & more rare as we count up. But there are twenty-five of them in the first hundred natural numbers. One in four is a prime number! That's awesome. Here they are:

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97

1973 was a pretty good year for music, something I'll explore this weekend. But it was even cooler for being the 297th prime number. (297, by the way, is not a prime number. Its divisors are 1, 3, 9, 11, 27, 33, 99 & 297.) It's really hard, by the way, to count a list of numbers. My brain now aches.

Hooray for prime number 1973! Hooray for math geekiness!

Clipped Nibbles

I woke up this morning with the Buzzcocks in my head. Wait. That came out weird. Let me rephrase that. I woke up this morning & Steve Diggle & Pete Shelley were sticking their tongues in my ear.

That's an example of a common bit of humorology that professional & unprofessional funny folk often employ when trying to make people laugh. The "punchline" (as the philosophers call it) comes from the person expecting the talker (in the above case, me myself) to weasel out of an embarrassing slip of the tongue by quickly denying the possible naughty connotations thereof. Instead - & what makes it funny - the talker (still in this case, me) confirms the more disreputable meaning & therefore thwarts expectations, creating what in many circles is called hilarity.

Unfortunately, as the boy who cried wolf will tell you, this bit of humoristics should be used with moderation. Otherwise people will spit on you. Or rip your head off & take a shit down your neck. I've seen it happen. On an open-mic night. It wasn't pretty, & it smelled awful.

I did employ this humoroid (as the Baptist ministers call it) in last week's Self Help Radio. Some time during the show. I don't have an exact time. You can use your checklist & redeem the finished sheet at any S&H Green Stamps Depot. Should you be so lucky. By all accounts one of us must. Why not you?

Slept Through Friday

Umm? Oh, hi. I spent the day preparing for my colleague Dick Dickenbock's sub show tomorrow morning on KVRX, 91.7 fm, kvrx.org, from 5am to 9am. So listen. I'm going back to sleep. I mean, work.

Facebook Reprint

I wrote this last night as a response to one of those lists that people make you do on Facebook. (Yes, I'm on Facebook. The wife pressured me. If you want to be my friend, you can find a Gary Dickerson & Austin & viola! You can learn all the lies that are my life.) I thought it was funny so I thought I'd reproduce it here. Please to enjoy.

5 Things You May, May Not, Or May Really Care To Know About Me

Rules no one agreed upon: Once you've been tagged, you are being purposely made to feel guilty if you don't write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, outright lies, especially shameful acts, or experiences other people had or that you read about in a book which you would desperately like to claim as your own. At the end, you must choose 25 people to be tagged, unless you don't know 25 people, which of course you don't, but luckily you've accepted a lot of friend requests, so fill that shit up. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I think you have nothing better to do. I certainly didn't. Observe:

1. I am not an amphibian.

2. In the movie of my life I will be played by someone who hasn't been born yet. Also, that actor will be a hologram.

3. I think it's perfectly natural for a grown man to play with a ball of string. Yes, on the bus. What are you looking at?

4. That uncomfortable queasiness you feel whenever I'm around? It's all me. Sorry.

5. In tender moments, I am unquestionably asleep.

6. More often than not, there's a song going on in my head that is much, much louder than whatever nonsense you're talking about.

7. I have masturbated to poetry. Poetry written by a woman, of course!

8. I have masturbated while writing poetry to a woman.

9. I can read in the dark. Just not words.

10. While I understand the devastating physical drawbacks associated with it, not to mention the societal implications of my actions, the ruined lives, the devastated families, the billions of dollars lost by lack of productivity & extensive hospital visits, I still advocate enforced glue-sniffing in America's middle schools.

11. My left hand hates my right hand. My right hand has no opinion either way about my left hand. That makes my left hand hate my right hand all the more.

12. I am deeply offended by excessive onomatopoeia. Oh, & it's excessive when I say it's excessive.

13. I firmly believe that there's no such thing as a free lunch. However, I think snacks should not only be free but compulsory. Also, I believe that if you're clever enough to save your snacks for lunch & can save lunch money that way, you're awesome.

14. It took many years (& some difficult & painful trials) to correct my misconception but I for the longest time labored under the misapprehension that it was the smell of kevlar & not its tensile strength that stopped bullets. My deepest appreciation to Officers Johnson, Livermore, Goodstone, Royce, Turington, their widows & their families for their extraordinary help with this matter.

15. Part of the reason I enjoy being on the radio is that I am very visual person.

16. Billboards are communicating to me & to a select few (you know who you are) how deeply disappointed Satan is in our continual inability to utterly & completely fuck shit up.

17. My wife is our marriage for the money.

18. My wife is not very good with money.

19. The Bible is the yummiest book I have ever fed to a goat.

20. No matter how hard I try, my wedding ring does not charge when I put it next to my Green Lantern brand Power Battery. No, not even when I say, "In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight, let those who worship evil's might, beware my power, Green Lantern's Light!"

21. In regards to certain hurtful things I have said in my life about William Faulkner, I can with a heavy heart admit now it's really because he returns my correspondence to him unopened & unread. & that just hurts. I know he has a Nobel Prize & all, but, I mean, it's not like he's written anything for years. Okay. Okay. I'll let it go.

22. Fact # 22 about me is still sealed by the courts. You can try a subpoena, but I was a juvenile at the time & anyway there's no one else left to talk about it but me.

23. I will not be deterred from my incredibly solid belief that a presidential election was held in Ghana on December 7, 2008, at the same time as a parliamentary election. Nor can anyone sway me from my firm conviction that, since no candidate received more than 50% of the votes, a run-off election was held on December 28 between the two candidates who received the most votes, Nana Akufo-Addo & John Atta Mills. & though I run the risk of seeming like a fool to my friends & colleagues, I will maintain to my death that Atta Mills was certified as the victor in the run-off election on January 3, 2009, by a margin of less than one percent.

24. Call me a prude if you must, but anything you say to another person while you are urinating or defecating is not really worth saying.

25. I believe sarcasm is boring. Also, irony is dead.

Whither An Ordinary Show?

The late, not-so-great philosopher/accountant Marmaduke Garfield once wrote, "We shall be happier in our employment & our daily lives should we endeavour to exist as though in extra-ordinary times." I have never really agreed with anything less. Let me be clear - you may be extraordinary, & your pets are probably extraordinary (compared to humans, not necessarily to other pets) (& certainly not compared to my pets), & you may have extraordinary experiences all the time - but most of us don't. For many people, my mother included, the most extraordinary thing in their lives is Self Help Radio. I mean, why can't all radio shows be that good?

It has made me sad, as steward of this show, which doesn't "believe the hype" about itself. (It also doesn't "play against type.") (Nor does it "Put that in its pipe & smoke it.") So when the show was approached by the local peasantry eager for a respite from its unrelenting quality, it balked. Then it stalked out. It walked the walked & talked the talk. It chalked up the criticism to vicious rumors. It was, in short, in denial.

Listen, I said to my radio show, which was emitting a slow, soft hum, like a television with its clothes off. Listen, I said. Let's just have, for once, an ordinary show. (It ignored me.) Just an ordinary show. (No response.) A simple, plain, ordinary show. (Not even a nod in my direction. I had to break out the thesaurus.) A commonplace, conventional, familiar, garden variety, generic, modest, no great shakes, normal, pedestrian, plain, prosaic, quotidian, routine, run-of-the-mill, undistinguished, uneventful, unexceptional, unremarkable, usual, white-bread, workaday show. Can we do it just once?

Well, as you know, Self Help Radio loves synonyms. It said, "Oh all right!" Then it confided in me: "You had me at quotidian."

Let's hope the show doesn't change its mind before Saturday.

Preface To An Ordinary Show: Meetings Are So 2008

In the meeting, this afternoon, the Most Important Boss said: "Celery sales are down! Who shall be the one to sell the shares?"

No one dared raise their bloody marys. Yet the most ordinary of salespeople, Milton Bardley, coughed ever so slightly, in a non-offensive way, into the uncufflinked shirt which his mother had failed to wash for a fortnight.

The room gasped. One spousal hire even choked on her canape. The Most Important Boss said, "Who is it? Who wants the high salary gained by high celery sales?" He thumped a fist on the desk, which was made of something a lot like oak, only artificial.

Milton was queasy, but he feebly responded. "It is I," he sort of peeped, "Milton Bardley, quality control assistant for Accounts Backup & Mutual Department, sir. And," he added, "a big fan of celery."

"You can't sell celery short, Breadloom!" thundered the Most Important Boss. "Nor slowly! Celery must be sold with celerity! Accelerate the celery sales son!"

Milton had had four little strokes in any many little minutes, but he said, "Certainly sir the celery shall sell itself."

"Cover me in cheese spread & call me a cracker," said the Most Important Boss. "You've gotten something on your soiled trousers, Bartleby! Celery selling itself! Cut out the middleman! Bypass the farmer's market! Door-to-door celery sales!"

To the moment he died, which was about fourteen minutes later, Milton Bardley considered this the most wonderful moment in his life. He couldn't begin to think of the comic books he'd be able to buy on his new salary. Alas, his ordinary heart gave out under the extraordinary pressure, & he might have been saved, except the Most Important Boss also experienced an explosion inside, when his brain exploded from a violent tumor, & as he collapsed to the floor, the still Most Important Boss took Milton's idea with him into death.

The end.

A cautionary loop brought to you by Self Help Radio.

Halloo Noo Year!

In the fiery grape-leaf fields of Corsica, several uneducated philanthropists this past week burned an effigy in effigy, thus setting the pace for the groundless & baseless foundation of what most people (though not all persons) have taken to calling "2009." A small but wearisome minority have not yet succeeded in their campaign to call the new year 1492 2.0, but an unsuccessful attempt to lobby the so-called political parties of Sweden pretends to have made some headway.

Self Help Radio wishes nothing but goodwill to the scrappy but lame 2009 & reminds it that its library books were due, like, last year. In the absence of abstention, 2009 will be with us for a few more months, a sorry testament to how truly anemic years that are not prime numbers can be. (Hello 2011! When will you shave us?) Never you mind. The storehouse of environmental poisons will keep us on our toes. As long as we have toes. QED.

In this spirit, the not-quite-as-wealthy-as-they-were-this-time-last-year corporate masters who sanction with some embarrassment Self Help Radio reluctantly announce that it has been renewed for another twelve months. You can witness (in audio form) their shame at selfhelpradio.net. You are encouraged to do so. Be not afraid! It can be cleared up with a little ointment.

Happy new year!

She's The One I Love

I'll be (mostly) away from a computer all day tomorrow, so I figured I'd write in this here blog here here here so I don't miss a day. I feel awful about missing a week. I don't think I have slept a wink since last night. & is it really sleep when large quantities of alcohol make you lose consciousness? I think Socrates said it best when he said, "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

Two weeks later, the scorn you chose to shield me with still raises hackles. Did you put your answering machine on repeat just for me? Or was it your voice mail? Excuse me if I am not as rabid with the latest tautologies as you are. At least I can watch a Don Cheadle movie without feeling dirty. Can you say the same? Can the ghost of James Stewart say the same? Can Jimmy Stewart's ghost say anything? Would it be a cute semi-stammering drawl with a reverb effect? Oh the things you let on!

I just want you to be peripherally aware that tomorrow, my first Self Help Radio of 2009 will appear, & I hope you'll sit with your family around a roaring campfire & sing all the nice songs that the nice folks (not those assholes in Nice) have such the nice reaction to. & it'll be like I am there with you, a cigar in my pocket & some loose change down the front of my blouse, secretly wishing I could hold your hand like in the old days & stare up into the planets, & then burning myself on the fire because I fell asleep again, so comforted am I by your clammy paws.

& why aren't you my friend on Facebook anyway? You never loved me.

Giraffe Ate My Homebook

Happy New Year! Now I gotta re-do my stupid Self Help Radio web page. Thanks Father Time!

Powerful forces who monitor my ever other move would have sent this note if I had deigned to read it: "Mr Help Radio, we who control you every other thought & the bowel atrocities besides not only hoard water & make passionate love to giant squid, but we also carry an advent calendar which tells us thus: where is the December Self Help Radio Extra? Not that we would download & read such orifice pornography, but we believe in the sanctity of the space-time continuum & also in the ever-expanding puffiness of the Shatner Neck. Please correct this by New Year's Diary or we'll have to borrow your tambourines & not return them on time. Love, the Overlords."

Alas! My recent adventure in Africa haven't nor willn't make it possible to explain not only the horrors of elderly baptism, but also (if not including) how an unexpected victory at a North Dakota arm-wrestling competition (mavel tov!) made it virtually implacable that I continue to fulfill the December obligations to which I have been acclimatized. My deepest apologies. January is as always on a totally different platter. Stay lubed!

Will you ever love me again? If not then, when?

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 18?

2008 was a persistent cough with an intermittent sore throat. 2008 was to laugh. 2008 daren't, & most certainly 2008 mayn't, especially after we all agreed, don't let's 2008! A pox on all 2008 houses, & then a lot of us didn't own them anymore.

2008 sat in a pool of its own waste, yelling wildly at all the other years, but somehow sounding both more petulant and mewlish. 2008 was too cute by half. 2008 could never decide what to wear, so looked both foppish & unkempt. 2008 could barely pay attention, & paid nearly no mind.

2008 held its breath & still never got what it wanted. 2008 pratfell but wasn't funny anymore. 2008 was the year that cried "Wolf!" to a tired world. Every old idea 2008 recycled would have been cheaper to manufacture new.

2008 had wagged & snarled like a dog. 2008 fantasized more & more & dreamed less & less. 2008 took pills for all sorts of things: to focus on its standardized tests, to be better at sports, to keep the blood clots from forming in its legs, to see colors in the night sky.

2008 was not sure what it wanted to be when it grew up. 2008 lied to everyone about its sexual prowess. 2008 needed a shower & a shave &, toward the end, everyone agreed, was letting itself go. The impression 2008 left was slight, like finding a cut on your body & not remembering when you got it. Still, 2008 lost a lot of blood.

2008 gained weight but wasted time. 2008 wrote lots of bad poetry because hardly anyone wrote poetry to 2008. What a hypocrite 2008 was! What a sad sack of shit 2008 was! What a bleary-eyed malcontent 2008 was!

We all had mostly decent times with 2008, but the bad times were really, really bad. Now none of us can really come to grips with 2008. 2008 stole more than a year from all of us. We can help feeling, right before 2008 disappears, that somehow 2008 owes us big time. & yet. We know we'll never collect.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 18: My Thoughtless Dismissal Of Christian Heavy Metal Causes A Shitstorm

A new year. A cloud of poisonous smoke. A level five ogre with a plate of recently spoiled luncheon meat. A book of non-sequiturs. Three Irish setters named "O'Seamus." Everyone who will ever love you. Some who will not.

A rented coat rack in a drifter's squat in Bakersfield in 2008. The next-to-the-last day of the year. You're there. I'm there. Not surprisingly, Montana governor Brian Schweitzer is there. The following are the words recorded in the angels' notebooks:

You: Sexy.
Me: Remunerative.
You: Cavalier.
Me: Sandwich-board wisdom.
You: Fifteen points!
Me: Hollywood swinging.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer: The Governor will carry out the executive power vested by the Montana Constitution and faithfully execute the laws of the state. In so doing, the Governor's Office will ensure that the state government continues to live within its means; that is, with existing taxes collected equitably and no additional tax burden on its citizens. The Governor's Office will ensure that the programs and budgets of state departments are sustainable and operated efficiently and fairly. The Governor's Office will protect the social capital of Montana, its families, businesses and communities by the judicious use of state resources and effective delivery of state services.
You: What he said.
Me: What he did.

A breeze ruffles a sports jacket which, if it lives long enough, will become fashionable for the last time in 2015. There is something like fear in the air. It's the scent of fast food french fries scalded with lard. The governor trembles.

You: I wish there were still three pickles left.
Me: Devil-may-care.
You: Must I wait for love?
Me: Ne'er-do-well.
You: This painful burden I carry.
Me: Brother-in-law.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer: Terre de nos aïeux. Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux. Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, il sait porter la croix. Ton histoire est une épopée, des plus brillants exploits. Et ta valeur, de foi trempée, protégera nos foyers et nos droits. Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
You: I'm glad to hear it.
Me: Take it back.

Soon, night has fallen & it can't get up. The stars over the ocean step lightly, lest they be caught in a cross-current of mud, blood, beer & obscure human-tested pharmaceuticals. In the distance, a door slams.

You: Boys to men.
Me: All for one.
You: I'll be sure.
Me: Wrecks in effect.
You: Hair metal?
Me: No, no. Glam.
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer: What's a governor got to do to get some decent alcohol in this fucking town?
You: Roger Clemens?
Me: Clarence Clemons?
You: Clemons, Iowa?
Me: Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

A new year. Or maybe. No. No. It'll be a new year. Watch your step.

How Self Help Radio Changed 2008

Self Help Radio didn't help get Barack Obama elected President of the United States. Self Help Radio did not help India get to the moon. Self Help Radio was not involved in the death of [insert someone you like who died in 2008], although Self Help Radio did write an awful lot of poetry about that person three weeks before the death. Self Help Radio might have said something to offend the economy, but who will blame us for that?

Self Help Radio changed 2008 but being such a powerfully insignificant force for change. Self Help Radio may have been like the beating of a moth's wings that, thousands of miles away & decades later, causes a New Yorker to sneeze & infect a subway car with Mad Cow Disease. Science will find & dismiss a causal link soon enough, but for now, let the conjecture stand: even though you have no idea it exists, & probably never will, Self Help Radio is a miniscule force for change in your life.

(The actual ranking may be in the low high twenty thousands. But the actuaries are hogging the stats. They're still trying to prove that Self Help Radio kills the unborn at a higher rate than other radio shows.)

What does this have to do with pornography, you may ask? The number of Self Help Radio-themed pornographic series remained constant in 2008 (there were none), but where there's room for improvement, there's also room to dance. & Self Help Radio danced more than the average radio show in 2008. Radio shows are notorious wallflowers, so this may not seem to be important, but that's what they said about the Piltdown Man & look what kinds of hijinks ensued during that dance contest.

It's not too late to enjoy the last Self Help Radio of 2008 to glean for yourself what Self Help Radio knows to be true. Visit selfhelpradio.net & make yourself believe what you ought to know you believe. Which is, Self Help Radio is. & most possibly shall be.

Oh, Bollocks!

I'm sorry, friends. It's been a busy week. So can I take the week off from writing in the blog? Thanks!

This week's show is my favorite music (minus the electronica) from 2008.

If you're in Austin (or not), you can listen to my buddy Dick Dickenbock play lots of bluesy Christmas music on Blues At Sunrise this morning on KVRX from 7 to 9am (Texas time) & then, later, all kinds of Christmas music from 7pm till 1am (I think). That's on the 91.7 frequency. & live at kvrx.org. Maybe he'll let me archive it. But probably not.

See you Monday!

A Very Self Help Radio Christmas 2008!

Before I sign off this blog until next Monday (I gotta get married this weekend, don'tcha know), I have prepared, a week early, this year's a Very Self Help Radio Christmas. It's live for your listening & Santa-sucking-up pleasure at selfhelpradio.net. You're welcome. Now stuff my stocking!

& last year's Christmas show is still available for listening to if you are so inclined. & why not? Aren't you just a little gay for Christmas carols? I thought so.

See you in a few days! Have a happy pre-holiday weekend!

Whither A Self Help Radio Christmas 2008?

Ho ho ho! I've said on this blog & in the privacy of my own head that I don't really have any supernatural beliefs, so why in the world would a weirdo like me enjoy Christmas? The truth is, I don't. I don't give gifts, I don't get gifts, I don't enjoy anything consumerish or consumery or consumer-oriented. But. It's sad to admit this.

I love Christmas music.

Not just the funny or ridiculous stuff - & of course I like the ridiculous stuff - but even the schmaltzy stuff. Of course you have heard all the really, really overplayed stuff. But I don't play that on Self Help Radio anyway. I just play the stuff I've been digging around for for the past year. & surprise, surprise! There's a lot of great stuff!

Not only that - but you'll get it early. I'm not going to be around this weekend for Self Help Radio, so my Christmas gift to you comes a week early - tomorrow!

& I don't like giving gifts. Well, except to you.

Preface To Christmas 2008: Santa Pictures!

Hooray! It's drunk Santa!

Or is this drunk Santa?

Hey! Why is Santa so scary? I mean, he's really, really freaking me out. I wonder, has anyone ever done scientific research about this?

Whatever. The dude has sure been around a long time. But maybe it was Thomas Nast who invented him, so there's really nothing to be scared of. Unless. Oh god. Was it Coca Cola?

No? Whew. Boy, Christmas is weird.

Blood Pudding

How to Christmas polka, part one: Find someone to Christmas polka with. It's not entirely clear if one must wear Christmas polka dots, nor what exactly those entail. Dots of some sort. Maybe green & red. Next hire the best-rated Christmas polka band in the county. Perhaps there is a polka magazine which rates polka bands in your area. If not, fair enough. Perhaps there's some sort of telephone directory. Look under "polka bands." Lots to choose from? No? How about "bowling alleys"? All right, polka band. Polka partner. Next plan a Christmas party. Booze is essential. Friends are not. Booze makes a lot of good friends. In general. For short periods of time, but you only need a couple of hours. Polka bands can run you into some money. Christmas polka bands will gouge you. Believe you me. Booze, band, partner. Need polka lessons? Easy. "Polka For Dummies." Huzzah!

Tomorrow: How to Christmas polka, part two: emergency room etiquette.

Today: want to hear what I think is the neatest electronica to come out in the past year? Easily done! Visit selfhelpradio.net right now! Download! Listen! Electronic polka? Maybe not.

One Final Thought About A Weekend Full Of Cold Medicine

Too much isn't a good thing.

Or: maybe I should've had that flu shot.

Remember! Tomorrow Self Help Radio presents my favorite electronic songs of the year! Happening in the afternoon at selfhelpradio.net. Listen if only to hear how fucked up my voice sounds!

The Self Help Radio Email Archive Project: Submission Seven

Written for a young lady (not named Jane Jameson) in the spring of 1996. There's a sad story here, but I won't put it in here. Needless to say, I invented the "brain gophers" for her & this is the first time I've shared them with anyone but her. I hope she forgives me!

-----

Denver, 1999. In the fairly civil Civil Engineering Lab of the famous Jane "Overpass" Jameson, sewage system designer to the stars, the Civil Engineer confronts Specula, leader of the Brain Gophers.

"What do you want?" says she. "Batteries not included."

"A cup of tea would be nice," Specula responds. Not even a little chagrined.

Pouring tea, Jane realizes that all these years just the hint of flowing liquid would make her have to go the bathroom. Even reading such a sentence, or a wonderful poem mentioning the lovely cascade of an elegant river, would trigger her urination fixation. She thinks she might need some sort of bladder control device, & thinks about designing one.

"Brain Gophers, despite what our name implies (& we didn't name ourselves, Ms. Jameson, our parents did)," says Specula, "don't need brains. We don't have brains. We certainly don't want human brains. We like to dig in them, it's true, but we'd rather have cake. Lots of it. With sticky candies on top. And a thin layer of candle wax & grime. And perhaps a little song."

Jane's ears perk up. "A bunny hop song?" says she.

"Of course not," Specula fumes. "A Brain Gopher song."

Jane consults her World Almanac. Nothing there about Brain Gophers. She watches a little TV. Still not a thing about Brain Gophers, not even on the Discovery Channel. She reads the complete work of Henry James, who, she realizes too late, actually just seemed to have a gopher up his ass, not in his brain. She comes back to find the Brain Gopher beating himself in a double-blind game of of Stratego.

"I have no song," she says, realizing the world is doomed & she made need to start packing, "but I have a rhyming couplet."

"Hit me," says Specula.

"Okay," says Jane. She clear her throat, which hasn't felt well since March of 1996, and intones:

"No one ever can begin to explain
Those pesky gophers of the brain
But we can use lemon juice on that stain."

"That's not a rhyming couplet!" the Brain Gopher snarls. "That's a rhyming triplet!"

"Would you like an overpass with that?" asks Jane.

Whither Gary's Favorite Electronica 2008?

Ah. cold medicine. How kind you are to those of us whose noses are rubbed red from incessant blowing! You have let me see, through the cotton & fuzz in my head, such winsome colors & marmalade skies. That is why I am proud that this week's Self Help Radio will be a tender & thorough explication, exploration & explanation of my friend the cold/sinus medication.

[Uh, Gary? No, no, it won't. - Ed.]

Who said that? Holy fuck me! Is the cold medicine talking to me again?

[No, Gary, it's me. Your editor. - Ed.]

Ed.? Ed.? Who's Ed.?

[Remember, fifteen years ago, when they pulled you out of a Bombay slum where your vacationing parents had left you with only a sign that read "Help Me - Victim Of Chernobyl"? I was part of the team who put your back together. We wanted to make you bigger, stronger, faster. We had the technology. Instead, we found you liked to do radio. I was asked to keep an eye on you & make sure you could string proper English words together in a sentence. - Ed.]

I don't remember any of that. Is it true?

[What's true is true if you think it's true, Gary. - Ed.]

I think I should up the dosage of my cold medicine!

[& I think you should make sure that this week's Self Help Radio is your pick of your favorite Electronica of 2008. - Ed.]

Favorite electric cold medication!

[We would have made so much more money off you if you had just let us replace your brain with a barrel of monkey. - Ed.]

Monkeys on cold medication!

Preface To Gary's Favorite Electronica 2008: What's So Bad About Robots?

Warning: I am still cold-sick & am full of difficult medications. So before I tell you why robots will eventually enslave us & make us into no better than toasters for their sick fantasies, let me assure you that I am as lucid as the old mill stream. Or if I could put it in limerick form:

    There once was an inveterate drummer,
    Whose lack of teeth made him a gummer,
    Hoof & mouth disease
    Had killed all his fleas
    But they couldn't kill his neighborhood plumber.

I drifted off there for a second. What was I saying? Something about the nascent probability of orbital decay? That old party fluke? I never! Still, when it's balmy out, the medication makes me feel the strangest pure joy. I should like to blow my nose exclusively in the shower. We wait, don't we, for the many ways to bend & unbend.

Still not convinced? Exhibit R: robots! They may seem lovable now, but doesn't a knife seem nice until it's cutting your jugular? Could I say the same about scissors? & David Duchovny?

I trust you'll vouchsafe my godspeed as I away? Very well. Damn, this is good cold medicine.

I'm So Cold For You

It's true. Despite another wonderful Self Help Radio in the can - last week's Birthday Show is being celebrated by virtually everyone who ever had a birthday - which may explain why all the robots hate it - damn you robots! - as I was saying, despite being flush with triumph at making another show which is better than most of the other shows being made by anyone within a three hundred foot radius of me (you know, because I have a restraining order against all other deejays - which of course makes segues at the radio station very difficult), I caught a cold this weekend. It sucks.

It may not be simply a cold. It may be what savvy medicos are calling "a sinus infection." Wait? What's that? If it's a sinus infection I may need antibiotics. Antibiotics are heavily promoted by the wealthy & powerful Evolving Germs lobby. I hear that politicians pay to not go to their fundraisers. Anyway, I don't want to see a doctor, so I have been chewing on some kind of cold/flu/sinus medication & it's the daytime formula so I can't even sleep.

You know why my friends are telling me to do? They want me to snort salt water. I'm not kidding. They say it's an old-fashioned way of curing a cold. I imagine it's a new-fangled way to destroy the mucous lining in your sinus cavity. But what do I know? My head feelings like it's filled with cotton. But salt isn't a powder I will snort, sorry.

Wait! Stop reading this blog! I'm still infectious! Sorry! So sorry about that!