Preface To Concrete: Lazy Logic

I subscribed a long time ago to a "joke of the day" email thing to make sure one of my stupid online accounts was getting mail because, in those pre-google days, they'd sometimes close the accounts (if they didn't go out of business anyway - r.i.p. startrekmail & muslimmail!) if you didn't have regular email (& of course I'd forget about it anyway). I did it with the account that accesses this blog - & sometimes it's the only mail I have. So. Sometimes I read really, really bad jokes of the day.

The weirdest thing is the "offensive stereotype" joke - for example, if you're from Texas, the putatively stupidest Texan would be someone who went to Texas A & M, or an "Aggie" - has been apparently cleaned up - politically corrected, one might say - in that the subjects of those jokes are called "Antarctans" by this service. Apparently it's all right to offend the few hundred folks who live in Antarctica, but not people who should be smart enough to know that the school you went to doesn't define you. Unless you let it, I suppose. Anyway.

So today's was this sort of "strange but true" "funny thing to think about" series of arbitrary comparisons that might fly in a lame stand-up comic's act (which is probably where it originated), but seems to be monstrously unfunny because of its lazy logic. What's more, it's premise or motif or whatever is "Only in America..." which might also be a little insulting if you're the sort of person who doesn't like this country being dissed.

Here's a couple of just plain bad examples. Remember, they're supposed to be "things to make you stop and think."

- "Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance."

That's not technically true. The only stats I have are from a dumb song where it claims that "22% of the time a pizza arrives faster than an ambulance." That's in Great Britain. But I dunno - lately my pizzas have been coming awful slowly, probably because there are less drivers after gas exploded in price. Anyway, until someone can produce data on this, I call bullshit on it.

- "Only in America are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink."

This is one of the stupidest. Do they imagine all handicapped ("differently-abled") people are wheelchair-bound? What about amputees with prosthetics? Surely they can ice-skate just fine. & in any event, can a person with a handicap not visit an ice rink? Take his or her family there? What a douchebag this "joke writer" is!

These two are somewhat similar:

- "Only in America do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front."
- "Only in America do banks leave both doors open & then chain the pens to the counters."

I think both of these are risk-assessment decisions. The drugs are easier to steal in the drug store than the money in the bank (which is in a safe, with armed guards around for protection). So put the drugs in the back. Leave the bank open (like the drug store does, of course) during business hours. & the pens are chained to make sure not only that people don't walk off with them (because people do, & I'm sure they're not intentionally stealing them) but also so the next customer doesn't have to pick it up off the floor, or dig for it under crap on the counter.

Also, it's not only the sick that visit the pharmacist. We have many reasons to go there, & filling a prescription doesn't necessarily mean we're so gravely ill that a short walk into the bowels of a store would be something like an insult. I should also add that some smokers are pretty sick a lot of the time. Nyah.

- "Only in America do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight."

Do we know that for a fact that it's only in America this happens? I imagine it's also probably true in Canada. Anyway, the Straight Dope answered this to my satisfaction a while ago.

Oh, don't click this link for the meaning of Canadian Hot Dog. Don't say I didn't warn you.

- "Only in America do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'."

Of course, that's a dumb etymology, & the word for politics is Dutch is "politiek," in French it's "politique," in German it's "Politik," & in Italian it's "politica," all of which contain "poli" & some word that sounds like "tic."

The word "politics" comes from a Greek root meaning "civic affairs."

I think it's a dumb joke, but I am acting sort of irritated because not only is this purporting to make some sort of point about how crazy America is (even if just for a laugh), but it's now lying to do so.

One last one:

- "Only in America do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering."

Stop & think about this one. While you are mulling this, another person, someone not as thoughtful as you are, someone who believes that the political correctness mafia has simply gone too far with this nonsense & is a beagle's whisker away from an aneurysm, this person just can't believe all the wasteful motherfucking shit that we do to bend over backwards for one segment of society. Braille on a drive-up keypad! What the fuck?

Except you, like me, can see beyond this little taunt. We have a sense of proportion. We think. We know that people with handicaps aren't just wheelchair bound & should be able, in any case, to visit skating rinks even if they can't themselves skate. (I don't skate & I've been skating rinks. You're allowed.) We look at the big picture. We can surmise things, & then, perhaps, if they seem a little odd, we can check them out. We think this way: the corporate scum at Diebold & places like that who make ATMs (ATM machine is of course redundant) don't get an order like this: "We need 400,000 machines for Texas. Oh, & make 7,000 of them Braille-free for drive-up banking." They simply make the machine, & make them all the same, according to federal & state regulations, & some of them get put in drive-up positions. How fucked would they be if they did the opposite? Plenty. They deserve it, but they're covering their asses. & they're also probably saving money by not having to make two different kinds of ATMs - after all, I have no vision defects & I can use the ones with Braille just fine.

Plus, what if you're with a friend who has impaired vision & you're driving around & he wants to stop at a bank machine? You're going to make your friend get out? Why? There's Braille on the drive-through ATM! That's classy!

Livin' Largesse

New Self Help Radio show (about the breeze, of course) at selfhelpradio.net. In case you weren't paying attention.

May we take a moment, apropos nothing, to talk about regurgitation? That link links to the Wikipedia page about vomiting, & notes that "the two terms are often used interchangeably," but that they're two different processes &, what's more, the "causes of vomiting & regurgitation are generally different."

Members of my family have a deep, deep fear & dislike of vomiting & they can't or won't even try to do it when they're sick. They will leave the room when someone else is vomiting, because the very sound of it (sometimes even on television) will make they start to vomit. I used to be like that - I would only vomit if I absolutely had to, & usually even then I'd fight it.

But not anymore. Now I can vomit when I need to, & sometimes I even vomit preemptively, such as when I've had too much to drink & am about to go to bed, or when I feel something close to food poisoning & I assume that upchucking will make me feel better. While members of my family to this very day will suffer though emesis would relieve their discomfort, I could theoretically purge like a supermodel.

What changed? I had my heart mightily broken many moons ago. (Approximately 225 moons, I reckon.) (That's for my Native American time-keeping friends.) During the aftermath, I couldn't keep food down with any regularity. The merest thought of the one who had devastated me would cause me to throw up, literally. Though I of course got better, steeling my heart to let it get broken again & again, the ease at which I could vomit (& the acceptance I had of it, since I couldn't really stop it) stayed with me. No sticking a finger down a throat for me! If I think I need to ralph, I can do it.

Why this is on my mind I don't know. It certainly has nothing to do with this week's Self Help Radio, which will be about concrete.

Whither Breezes?

Whither indeed! The week breezed by. I am all airy & stuff.

But! New Self Help Radio tomorrow! Catch it - on the breeze!

Preface To The Breeze: An Ill Wind Blows

I've been sick for a couple of days, something related to my sinuses, & of course instead of visiting a doctor, which I can theoretically do because I, unlike a substantial number of Americans, have health insurance, I chose instead to diagnose myself on the web, in the same manner I suppose one figures out one's "true age" or the time & date when one will die, but the rest & lack of stress appear to have done me good, so I shan't whine any more about it. (Although I did whine about it on last week's Self Help Radio, which was about nuts, & I am a baby & so must complain about illnesses whenever possible, so please, if you're interested in nuts, or nutty people, or simply want to hear me whinge, go listen!)

As I began to write this, I thought of the phrase, "An ill wind blows nobody any good," & its many variations, which are collected here, which show how old that particular idiom is, & of course the Self Help Radio show this week has absolutely nothing to do with an "ill wind," which a breeze by definition can't really be, or can it?

The definition is "to blow gently & lightly," & one associates breezes with days in which a slight wind would be most refreshing. But the slightness - & perhaps the subtle comfort it gives one - has made it into a verb which means "to proceed quickly & easily," as in: "Gary's Self Help Radio blog is so insubstantial I just breeze through it as though I am reading a twitter message." Because one can breeze through a task - housework, a test, any chore, etc. - the verb returned to the noun realm & made anything easy to do "a breeze."

Will this week's Self Help Radio be a breeze to do? To listen to? Will it help you make your life breezy? That's for me to know & you to find out on Saturday. Now, scoot, before I start to talk about being sick for three days.

Slight Delay Day

Just an FYI: this week's Self Help Radio, which will be dated May 2, 2009, will not appear today. A previous commitment is making me stay away from a helpful computer for most of the day, not counting now, when a helpful computer is helpfully helping me make a lame excuse. Please look for your regularly scheduled Saturday Self Help Radio some time on Sunday, where it is irregularly scheduled. That is all. Wait. No. I'm sure that's it. I'm sorry if it inconveniences you. That wasn't my intention. If anything, I'm inconvenienced. My whole Saturday schedule is ruined. Because of a previous commitment. Which I am not making up. I swear. All right. We're good? You sure? See you tomorrow then at selfhelpradio.net. I hope. No, I promise. I think. Smile & wave, Gary. Smile & wave.

If It's April's End, There Must Be A Self Help Radio Extra!

& so there is. Please enjoy a new mix of indie musics for this month's Self Help Radio Extra. I've been reading about portmanteau words & have been wondering if I can start calling them "Shrextras." What do you think? No? All right then.

New songs by Art Brut, Au Revoir Simone, Official Secrets Act & stuff mixed with older tunes by Twig, Girl Of The World, Orange Juice & stuff. Self Help Radio Extra. It's like I made you a mixed tape or something, & that means you've GOT to listen to it.

Whither Nuts?

Are you allergic to peanuts? For reals? You could die! We could all die! Check the label! Check the motherfucking label!

Yes, over the course of the last few decades, our toxic culture has made us more & more allergic to everything we co-evolved with. Or has it? Sometimes we're wrong, because we're scared. No "No Nuts" shirts for me, please. I'm chewing peanut butter flavored gum.

For reals, I ain't allergic to any damn thing. Well, maybe cats. But look, I don't eat cats, I just snuggle them & pet them & let them get their dander all over me until my eyes run red & I sneeze like a surfer with sinus drain. It's worth it.

So I ain't allergic to any damn thing except cats. I sure as hell ain't allergic to any damn pea motherfucking nut. Although I confess I could give or take almonds. Yes, even in marzipan. I don't know why. I just feel... Not connected to the almond. You know? You understand? You feel me?

I don't think I've eaten a nut today. Oh yes I have! I had pine nuts on my spinach salad for lunch! Or were those sunflower seeds... Well, then, I'm going to get some peanut m&ms. Or maybe a butterfinger. But not an almond joy! Don't you try to trick me with an almond joy! That shit's got both almonds (about which I've already shared my ambivalence) & coconut! That's just cruel, that's schoolkid cruel. Some school bully invented almond joy mos def.

Okay, I'm getting dizzy writing in both a white-guy-pretending-to-talk-in-hip-hop-slang & a-snotty-type. You can't hear the voices in your head, but I can, & it's giving my brain whiplash. It's making me nutty!

Full circle. Hot diggety!

Preface To Nuts: Live Bloggins?

It's true, I'm a live bloggins, while I am sitting in on a KVRX show called "Goosfand," playing Middle Eastern music & the like. It has nothing to do with anything, except I may put the show up at selfhelpradio.net at some point & I'm a little nuts anyway.

It's not really live bloggins, though, is it, if I wait until I'm done to post it. That means I'm not nuts, I'm lame. Oh well. At least we're not friends on Facebook & you can hassle me about it.

Or do you want to be friends on Facebook?

I just read this spot from State Farm which thanks "our armed forces" for making sure we can have a Memorial Day, & I was thinking, while I was reading it, isn't it weird that I am thanking armed forces who are over in one of the parts of the world where the music I'm playing comes from, & their presence has probably resulted in the deaths of countless musicians who might otherwise be making music that could be played on shows like this one? Is that what they call irony?

I'm not blaming them! They're not deliberately killing musicians!

Okay, that's it, no more live bloggins for me. I'll continue to pretape my bloggins.

O Salty Humans, How You Disappoint Me

I have told you, my friends, of the story of the tiger & the 1965 Chrysler 300L Convertible, have I not? Please remember that story as I tell you, then, of my recent problems with the constabulary. You all know Sheriff Stephanie, do you not? A finer specimen of law & order gung-ho hobbiting I've never seen. But after a fortnight - & two fortdays - I had been perhaps weaving if not ducking on the side roads near the tavern sponsored by corporate largesse. It may have been easier had I brought along my trusty two-wheeled unicycle. From out the bushes, then! Sheriff Stephanie & her merry man! Slapped the cuffs on me as though it were no big deal! I could've outrun them, I swear, if not for my sneaky respect for the rule of law.

My Uncle Danko, the shyster, was on speed dial in no time, but I did enjoy a lukewarm Hot Pocket & the lusty stories of chatty felons for several hours before they woke Judge Happenstance from his twice-yearly self-imposed coma & he meted out my penance & perjury. A sorrier excuse for petroleum jelly I have never seen! His forelocks numbered three & he chose not to respect any nor all outbursts in his vicinity. Were it not for the screaming, burning statue of immodest justice coming down upon his bench like a childish definition of irony I would perhaps still be in that courtroom today, wheeling, dealing, wrangling, dangling, high-fiving the neighbor's kids when we were stoked.

No, this is neither the time nor also the place for mannerly self-congratulation, but the lesson I wish to impart has less to do with what I think than what I think you think. Please, before we disappear into the empty expanse of timed outages, let yourself be free of cackling shackles & hollering hierarchies, yes, even if you must indeed inhale the fingerprint dust from the outstretched palm of a cross-eyed bailiff. Because I am saddened by your lack of enthusiasm for even the most torpid boredom, my friends, my friends, despite the hurricanes & the hurricants, you would be well-lubricated to forego whatsoever is required if only to be stand-offish & mischievous.

I know! Go surfing! Listen to a primer here. What's the worst that could happen, besides drowning & shark-bite? & wouldn't that happen to you anyway? Be honest!

Unsafesurfer

I am punning on a Julian Cope song I'll probably play tomorrow on the show. It's a show about surfing, although I am not above playing, for example, a song about couch surfing, which isn't at all dangerous unless you are friends with psychopaths, & snail surfing, which is something I just made up. I have no idea what the Julian Cope song is about, but it sounds comforting - "You don't have to be afraid, love, 'cause I'm a safe surfer, darling." & the song was written before there was much of an online world, too, so it can't be about computer viruses & modem condoms. (Okay, I just made up modem condoms too.)

Storm's a-brewin' in Austin town this afternoon, & I hope I get some wind & rain slapped in my face & (if I'm lucky) a giant magnolia blossom will knock the toupee off our governor's head. I just wanted to remind you that, no matter the weather, no matter how land-locked you are, you'll be surfing with Self Help Radio tomorrow in the afternoon. & all through the night, if you want. I'm easy like that. (& I'm not making that up.)

Whither's Surf's Up?

I knew this dude once who had a typical story, which surfer lore is replete with, & that story is this: some person in some career, be it bagboy or CEO, insurance agent or loan shark, finds his or her way to California or Hawaii for something like a vacation or time off, is cajoled into (or actually is interested in) surfing, & likes it so much, they give up everything to live near the beach so they can surf, surf, surf all the livelong day.

Surfing is a strange culture & it's only because I wanted to read more about it that I decided to do a show about surfing. I confess I am less interested in the twangy Dick Dale style of playing that has become known as "surf rock" (a sub-category of surf music) than in the whole attitude of people writing music about what is basically a leisure activity. There's more adrenaline, of course, which may explain why there's not such a thing as "golf music" (although a Google search turns up an Amazon page of lounge music called "golf music that swings!" implying, I guess, that famous golfers like Bing Crosby meant their music to accompany the game). There's also, of course, physically fit people in swimsuits. Craggy old men in embarrassing hats on a golf course can't compete.

Surf media, though, hasn't really interested me. I never liked the "beach blanket" movies of the 60's. As a big fan of Deadwood, I was willing to give creator David Milch's John From Cincinnati a fair shake, but it wasn't a very interesting show, although I do love me some Garret Dillahunt. It seemed to make the whole prospect of becoming a surfer a lot like becoming a junkie - you give up everything for your "fix" & live in a kind of tattooed squalor. But the songs seem to celebrate a lot more.

I'm of course just thinking out loud & certainly don't want to offend any surfers (or any junkies, for that matter), & this is just the mindset (or mind-un-set as the case may be) as I gather surf songs for Self Help Radio this week. & no, I'll probably never surf, not just because I'm afraid of jellyfishes (they sting!) but because I have a bad back & would hate to love surfing & then hurt myself so I couldn't surf again. It would be like my relationship with peanut butter cups all over again.

Preface To Surf's Up: Screw The Surf, Last Week's Show Is Up

Got it? Get it? Good!

Last week's Self Help Radio, which is about enemies, is available now for your listening pleasure at selfhelpradio.net. Which is the same link as the link for Self Help Radio. Also, it's the same link for the word "link". Can't have too many links, that's what I say. I might even link the Self Help Radio address to a link for Google while I'm at it. Who's going to stop me? The police?

Anyway, go listen. I finally finished it. I hope you didn't become my enemy because it was late.

Last Week's Self Help Radio Is On The Way!

I know, when I had to take a week off (or at least be gone the day my show was on) when Self Help Radio was on the radio, I tended to just skip the week or get someone to sub the show. But since Self Help Radio is a podcast now (but may not remain one in the future - more on that later as developing developments develop) I imagined I could come in from a long weekend, sit up & finish a new show a mere twenty-four hours late. But I couldn't. I didn't. But I will!

Yes, sir, I've been making last week's show in my head all day today & will put it together tomorrow. You heard me! Last Saturday's show will debut this Tuesday! & not only that - there'll be a new show Saturday! What do you think about that, haters? You hate it? Well, you by definition would. It seems like such an awful job title - "hater." What does that pay? Very well, you say? Good for you!

Tomorrow I'll have a Self Help Radio for you. I promise. & I hardly ever keep my promises, but this time, for you, I will. Because I don't want to disappoint the state of West Virginia. It's true.

Whither Enemies?

Yes, this week's show is about enemies. Here's what the Oxford Elephant's Dictionary says about enemies: "They say what they mean & when they say it, they're mean. Enemies are disloyal percent one-hundred thirteen!" Taking that as a cue, & refusing to attend a notoriously homo-conservative "tea-bagging" party this week, the staff & workman's compensation director of The Self Help Radio sat in their den &, over Ovaltine & mah-jongg, decided they didn't have a care in the world, at least not until sundown, when, the electricity turned off & the candles nothing but wicks, they'd have to sit in the dark & smoke their pipes (not in a homo-conservative way, you understand) until the sun came up again.

As it says in the Bibble, "Lo, & on the eighteenth day of April did a massive homo-conservative horde with teabagging yet to come descend in the dreams of every third unhappy male frog of indiscriminate gender. & the staff did cry out, O why? O why? For is there not something else on the television nor a snappy indie tune we can play in the car until the battery gasps low? & the staff did wail, & someone named Nash took out his teeth, & splendid were the controversial tire rims, which rotateth not the direction in which the car did move. & the staff shall sing out, I shall maketh a radio show against mine enemies, & it shall possibly rock."

I'm not a big fan of Bibble-prophecy, as my friends in my Bibble-study class know, but I do believe that the ancient sages & bookies who wrote the Bibble (you know the story - filled with the spirit of the Holy Odd, scribbling away on napkins while dribbling away down their shirts) knew something I didn't know, & while that almost certainly was about prostitutes & not prophecy (& anyway, we covered that a couple of weeks ago), I do know the idea of a radio show about enemies is a fine one, since frankly a person without enemies is like a Bibble-study class without porn.

Which reminds me: this week's show may be a little late, as I will be out of town from tomorrow to Sunday night. Please forgive. I'll make the show extra homo-conservative just for you. & this blog will also be silent, which is fine, because even if you are in fact reading it right now (which you aren't), it's not really here. Just you, & Bibble-porn.

Preface To Enemies: A List Of Enemies

In preparation for a show about enemies, a look over embattled protagonists throughout history is both edifying & necessary, & truly who was most embattled (not least in his own mind) than the American president who, until the last eight years, seemed like the worst possible occupant of the Oval Office, & that's Richard Nixon. Did you know he kept a list of his enemies? & don't you know if you keep a list of your enemies, it's bound to leak?

Well, I'm not worried, as I am publishing my enemies list right here, right now. No leaks necessary! Like always, I leak myself. Wait.

This is, however, a partial list, as I don't have my original list with me currently. I sent it to Kinko's to be laminated. I kept spilling soda all over it. It got a little soggy. Don't worry about the incomplete quality of this list - the rest is mainly the attendance lists of all my classes in school from first grade to twelfth. It's a big list.

These are the top eleven enemies of ME.

11. Jeff "Stickbug" Handleman. For questioning my honor in an online forum - repeatedly - when really all I wanted to find out was when the new season of Law & Order: Criminal Intent was starting.

10. Marjorie Johnson-Jones. For breaking my heart, then, because you're a perfectionist, coming back to break it again more properly. Ow. Ow.

09. Hornsby Police Chief Herman Dorsey. I'll just say this: that was my favorite thumb. You fascist!

08. Holden Caufield. Look, I know he's a fictional character. But he is my enemy all the same.

07. Camelia Morris. I didn't want to be in your stupid book club anyway. I hate you!

06. Some of my brothers, both of my sisters. If I must explain, let's talk a little about my fourth birthday, & slowly work our way up to the present, shall we?

05. Some of my mother, most of my father. You don't think I know how you've held me back? The genetic material you bequeathed me was only the start!

04. Rust. It seems like rust is always there, around the corner, on the corner, on the metal post at the corner. But I will have my revenge when I remove its precious oxygen!

03. That dog who shall not be named. You know who you are. & I know you read this blog. Or at least your owner does. Because you've got him fooled too! But not me!

02 Tim Robbins. Oh he knows why. He's just lucky he's smarter than David Schwimmer, because Schwimmer pissed me off & look what I did with his career. Hah!

01 My greatest enemy is imaginary. It might even be imagination itself. Mocking me. Taunting me. & it hates you, too.

If you want to be on my enemies list, drop me a line. It's certainly more fun than being on my friends list!

Glenrothes One-Way

It's another Monday, so there's another Self Help Radio which happened over the weekend. Did you miss it? Why or what not?

A few years ago, when I was coffee-maker & lookout for a rogue pizza parlor in Garland, Texas, I knew this dude who never bathed, never brushed his teeth, never washed his clothes - he was kind of like a college boy who's gone Rastafari - he's tell me, "I am the incarnation of death, pleasure & pain." He boasted that he went "on the hunt" in red light districts - but frankly, though Garland, Texas, at the time had a thriving rogue pizza industry, we didn't have any red light districts. The Baptists wouldn't let us.

So he meets this girlie he calls "Doll." She says, "The media image of beauty has left many men & women broken. Some become anorexic or bulimic, while others turn to plastic surgery in search of the perfect look." Doll therefore complimented her creepy beau by claiming to be "the incarnation of those whom suffer from cosmetic surgery addiction & have died as a result of it." She stapled skin to her skin so it would look like her skin was falling off. I don't really know whose skin she stapled to her own skin. I didn't get close enough to find out.

They're both my friends on Facebook now. I have nothing to say to them. So I recommended this week's Self Help Radio.

Synonyms for Nonsense

Babble. Blather. Blatherskite. Gabble. Gibberish. Jabber. Jabberwocky. Twaddle. Balderdash. Bunkum. Claptrap. Drivel. Piffle. Poppycock. Rigmarole. Tommyrot. Applesauce. Baloney. Horse feathers. Bilge. Hooey. Malarkey. Bull. Bunk. Folly. Foolishness. Hogwash. Hot air. Jive. Mumbo jumbo. Rubbish. Trash. Tripe. Blarney. Moonshine. Bosh. Guff. Codswallop. Flapdoodle. Hokum. Gobbledygook. Monkey business. Shenanigans. Hanky-panky. Eyewash. Phooey.

Nonsense!

Whither Upstairs/Downstairs?

The surface area of Lake Michigan is 22,400 square miles. The surface area of Lake Victoria is 26,600 square miles. The surface area of Lake Ray Hubbard is 35.5 square miles, which is pretty big if you live in Rockwall County, Texas, & your idea of really big is a super-sized burger & fries. But you know what these lakes don't have that many houses do? An upstairs. A downstairs.

Downstairs can be the first floor, but it's more ominous if it's the cellar. Or worse, the dungeon. Same with upstairs. From a cellar, upstairs is the first floor. But the coolest upstairs is an attic. Some might say, "What about a penthouse?" No! An attic! Hopefully an attic in Paris. Where a young poet can starve to death! The only person who starves to death in a penthouse is an Oliver Douglas type, & it's really only his soul that's starving to death. Lisa makes sure he has a sandwich every once in a while.

So like most directions, upstairs/downstairs is relative. It's not a very good idea to keep a relative in your attic or basement. This includes animals, although I've met some cats who'd probably enjoy a dingy attic &/or basement, especially if there's cable. Animals love stairs, by the way. If even to just hang out upon them. They understand upstairs & downstairs.

My brain, now that I think about it, is divided into upstairs & downstairs, although that's a little personal, so I'll stop here.

Preface To Upstairs Downstairs: I've Actually Never Seen The British Miniseries "Upstairs Downstairs"

The British television series Upstairs Downstairs was shown in the early 70's & has become a beloved program for those who keep track of such things. According to the Internet Movie Database:

The series follows the lives of both the family & the servants in the London townhouse at 165 Eaton Place. Richard Bellamy, the head of the household, is a member of Parliament, & his wife a member of the titled aristocracy. Belowstairs, Hudson, the Scottish butler directs & guides the other servants about their tasks & (sometimes) their proper place. Real-life events from 1903-1930 are incorporated into the stories of the Bellamy household.

Sounds delightful. I've never seen it.

But wait! Isn't the theme this week "upstairs downstairs"? It is, but it's not "Upstairs Downstairs" the television series I've never seen. It's mainly a chance to play songs about stairs, different floors (like, you know, the second floor, etc.) & the distinction between. A few songs make use of a pun on the word "story" to mean a "tale" or a "level of a house." In any event, it has nothing to do with England (except I'll play some English bands I suppose) or the aristocracy (although I do drink nasty sherry whilst I do the show) or the help in the cellar (although I am descended from peasant stock). It's just about the different floors of a house. Upstairs. Downstairs.

Yeah, yeah, I'll watch it one day. It just doesn't really have anything to do with this week's Self Help Radio.

Inverness Straightaway

This is a perfunctory persimmon to let everyone know including you that Self Help Radio had a new episode in spite of your misgivings this past weekend, & it's available where your "Self Help Radio" products are normally sold. That's right. Your grocer's freezer.

It has come to my lack of attention that certain "online help wanted boards" (for want of a better board) have been advertising under my very name for "interns" for "Slef Help Radio." (Yes, they spell it that way.) (Should I have written "Slef Help Radio" [sic]? It does make me feel a little [sic]. I am of course a non-profit or rather a no-profit, & even if my show last week was about fortune telling, I am also a non-prophet, & can tell you we won't be hiring in the future, although the job of me may be available if I don't start exercising and eating right.

Also, please accept a humble apology olive branch loaf to all Emile Zola fans whose parentage I may have disrespected in a recent screed on a serious online French novel message board. I had been harboring some negative feelings about Nana for some time, & I didn't know how strongly I felt until I started writing.

That is all.

Oh My E R

Here's a nice article about the series' finale of ER, one of my favorite television shows of all time. Fifteen years it's been on! It's hard not to think of a television show like a band, with seasons like albums, & especially a show like ER which currently has nobody in the cast who was there when it first went on the air. (Same thing with Law & Order now, too.) I guess with Carter back this season for the end it's the television show that's most like The Fall, although the Noah Wyle as Mark Smith comparison fails or so many levels, starting with a full set of teeth & sliding down.

Also, like many bands, the earlier seasons of television shows ("their first albums") are a lot better than the later seasons. There are only a few television shows that ended anywhere near the strength of their beginning, although some (like Deep Space Nine) don't find their feet right away. But the same is true for bands.

Which is my way of saying I am as sad about ER going off the air as I might be about one of my favorite bands breaking up - but a band that didn't still have all the members it had when it released its best work, & a band that I still listen to from time-to-time - & always get the new record - but that I don't expect to be wowed in the same way I was when I first heard them.

I won't get to watch the episode tonight, though, as the wife's out of town & I have to wait for her return to see it. Luckily Smallville's on! You heard me! I watch superhero television shows too! What're you gonna do about it?

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?