Lyrics To Songs That May Or May Not Exist

I grew up in a medium-sized suburb called Garland, Texas. Here is the city's homepage. I knew that people paid a lot of attention to football, but myself lost interest as I grew older. I went to only a couple of games for my middle school team, since I was on the yearbook staff & had to take pictures. I never went to any of my high school's games. Actually, I might have gone to one. Yeah, I went to one. In my senior year. I remember everyone I knew being surprised to see me there. & it was chilly. & afterwards, I deejayed for the first time at the after-game dance, & I did an astonishingly bad job. The shape of things to come!

College football is another thing entirely, of course, & I never went to a single game at the University of Texas, when I was a student or later as staff. (Here is Austin's web site.) In fact, the games were very inconvenient for me since I used to spend Saturdays at KVRX, & of course campus was clogged when there were games. One time, I was walking to the station, which was away from the game, & some already drunk dudes passed me & said, "Hey, you're going to wrong way!" I said, somewhat snottily, "No, I think I'm going exactly the right way." I didn't smile or turn around or anything, but one of them said, "He's lookin' to get his ass kicked!" But I didn't get my ass kicked.

But even though Austin slowed down during UT football games, & it was generally quieter at supermarkets & the like during such times, the city never shut down the way Huntington was this afternoon. Granted, Huntington (whose web page is right here) is about a tenth the size of Austin, & less than a quarter the size of Garland, but wow! The city was quiet as if there had been an invasion this afternoon because of the football game. What football game? Er. I didn't ask. Let me check.

Ah! It was the season opener, & Marshall University beat Southern Illinois 31-28. I beat there's a lot of happy folks tonight. Good for them! I think I'm going to watch Green Acres instead. Speaking of, have I ever shown you my Green Acres fan fiction? I really should.

Manna Mania

From the Wikipedia:

As a natural food substance, manna would produce waste products; but in classical rabbinical literature, as a supernatural substance, it was held that manna produced no waste, resulting in no defecation among the Israelites until several decades later, when the manna had ceased to fall. Modern medical science suggests the lack of defecation over such a long period of time would cause severe bowel problems, especially when other food later began to be consumed again. Classical rabbinical writers say that the Israelites complained about the lack of defecation, and were concerned about potential bowel problems.

They used every part of the manna, no shit.

That's manna mania!

The Other End Of The Loop

Huzzah & hurrah! Yesterday's Self Help Radio show is up for those of you foolish enough to have missed its initial airing at selfhelpradio.net! Alert the authorities! Countermand the captain's orders! Belay that! Belie that! Bellow from the rooftips! Cut the blond from your hairtips! Cut the bland with your fingertips! & by all means tip your caddy!

Also huzzah & as well hurrah! In the same place, with a slightly more poppy feel, is the fifth non-fattening episode of Sugar Substitute. Loaded with confection, you can play it in public & it'll slightly increase your intrinsic self-worth. Psychologist-apprised & well worth its own sweet time!

Please be a dear & go listen to them. Daddy needs to have a nap now.

Game Duh

I'm on the air in about an hour on 88.1 fm WMUL Huntington. If you're not able to listen to it, I'll be archiving the show tomorrow at selfhelpradio.net. I have to go clean my shoes & shine my spats - must look spiffy for the radio crowd! Hope to hear that your heard!

Stay Of Elocution

Yeah, it turns out that there was scheduling issue today at WMUL, so I didn't get to do Self Help Radio. It'll air tomorrow on 88.1 at 3pm, & maybe again next Wednesday at that time. The new schedule will begin the week after next, so my timeslot (if I get one I hope I get one!) should be stable for a while after that. Tune in!

I probably didn't coin the pun "stay of elocution," but I did use it in a poem I wrote a million years ago. It was called "Stripper Girlfriend" & went like this:

what is light after all but the end of the denial & the rest
of the afternoon spent secretly dreaming of management games
& chests pressed sternly against sidewalk & self or did they
in half of one six dozen of the other somehow tell everybody
that subdued sadness or repressed depression manages to lift
out of sex & affection when least is likely & knowing naught
is not the right response but what i mean or what i'm trying
to say whether love or whether apple core clues or whether a
stay of elocution pumps honesty or not like i care to get at
the meat of the matter or the jism of the gist or the broken
heart of the moment need sweaty bloody teary-eyed courageous
& all i ever manage is hold on hold back hold it right there
ha eyelids make smashing sounds & perspective is a curse but
end of the tunnel faster than the thankfully schoolyard bang
bang or did i mention marriage because the shadow cross play
& play house too closely for me to pharmacy & farm community
in isolation is another dreamy dream like losing nothingness
your best friend the only one who understands you sacrifices
inlove for breakfast eugene v debs for places to go peephole
to see the never never ain't forever what with bookends here
& over here so excuse me tough time opening this jar of meat
loaf should be pandora's box it's surely not happening is it

I Was Going To Call This Particular Post "The Night Before"

But it turns out I may be moving the show around again to air on Wednesdays from 3 to 5.

So you'll just have to wait till tomorrow to find out. I have to wait the rest of the night, I think.

Whither Loops?

In high school, I came the closest to fulfilling my aspirations of being a rock & roll star (aspirations which, by the way, I never pursued with any sort of determination - so it's not like I'm heartbroken it didn't happen) when an old friend - who really could play musical instruments, &, unlike me, could also sing - had me come in & horse around with him, making stuff up while he played basic chord progressions on the guitar (in those days, this friend was more of a loner, & he would then spend days adding other stuff - drums, backing vocals, other guitars - in the privacy of his lonesome room with a four-track recorder). Thus was born such incredible songs you'll never hear like "Teenage Zombie," "Prom Night," "Battering Ram," "Officer Burrell Has Some Documents For You To Sign," & "Vandal With Me," as well as eminently forgettable covers of U2's "I Will Follow" (in which I ad-libbed the lines, "I'll follow you to your house - to you grandmother's house - I'll wait in the bathroom - I will follow!") & ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man," which I was openly mocking by perfectly enunciating the doggerel lyrics. I still fucking hate that song.

My pal Joe gave us a name - Atheists On A Mission From God - but it turned out to be ill-timed, as my loner friend was finding Jesus simultaneous to our musical adventures & would eventually stop talking to me for years because I was an infidel & he couldn't save me. You can imagine that, for a young man surreptitiously (well, he didn't tell me) finding God, it must have rankled when I'd phone up & say, "Hey, wanna do some Atheists stuff this weekend?"

Those songs are all lost, more or less. I probably have them on cassette somewhere, but the cassettes have probably melted or oxidized or whatever happens to old cassettes. I was pretty young at the time - 17 or 18 - but boy did I have fun. I wish then we had had the digital technology we have now. My friend destroyed his copies (along with a lot of his own recordings, I think, & a lot of his record collection, which had a lot of Satanic stuff in it, like Talking Heads) when he was saved by Jesus. Jesus may well have been doing the world a favor!

Of all the songs to be least proud of is "Battering Ram," a sexist ode which is a ridiculous boast from me, a boy who hadn't yet had sex, about my member's terrifying abilities to break down the walls of love (literally?) over a twelve-bar blues. Inane, but the whole point was that I was trying to crack up my musician friend (who gave the song its title - I didn't then & still don't think that way) with dumb lines like:

I dated this girl about four days
I said "Baby something's getting in the way"
No problem, battering ram!

At the end of the song, while I was singing "I'm a battering ram," my friend said, "His bedroom's an obstacle course." So I added, "Watch it jump through the hoops, do loop-de-loops, battering, battering ram." I can still both see my friend crack up & hear it in my head. He was one of those people you liked to make laugh.

That "loop" song is one, though, you won't hear on Self Help Radio this week. Or ever. If I can help it.

Preface To Loops: You Can Loop This Blog Post & Rap Over It

I miss working at the University of Texas for one really big reason: the campus has a subscription to the Oxford English Dictionary Online. You know how much it costs for one person, like me, who might only use it now & again, & usually for my dumbass radio shows? Two hundred & ninety five dollars a year! That's amazing. Of course, the twenty-volume set costs a thousand dollars, so I suppose it's something of a bargain. Not all that looking up, leafing through pages, etc. You know, the stuff that makes books so much fun.

I can use dictionary.com, but it doesn't have those archaic quotes from writers that I'm sure seemed a lot more important at the time that the OED has. It does, however, have twenty-nine definitions for "loop" so I am a little grateful for that. I can also used Merriam-Webster, which is also free but a little clunky to navigate through. The other Webster's is by far the most comprehensive & free, yet I don't know why - I still miss the OED.

I think it's that you can turn off & on, like etymology & quotes. I am a sucker for sites that let you hide & show information.

You know, if you spend a little time with dictionaries online you can see where I get a lot of info I impart on the show. That's probably not a good thing to tell you - maybe you would otherwise think I am much smarter than I really am. But there you are. You can think I'm loopy - even if I'm not looped but sober - you can grab me by the pants loop or take me around town on the loop - but now you're in the Self Help Radio loop. Enjoy.

Loop Loopy

You get kind of loopy listening to songs both about loops (including the clothing kind) as well as songs constructed with weirdly obvious loops, & as such you begin to find yourself thinking about, I don't know, dressing up your dog as the Starship Enterprise. How bad an idea can it be?

Whatever happened to all those people who wanted to raise their own money to keep a Star Trek franchise show on the air? Did the new Star Trek movie quiet them down? Or will they continue to make their own movies? (I confess, I really like the tag line of that homemade Star Trek movie, "Star Trek - Of Gods & Men": "Legends come together one last time... To destroy each other." But wouldn't it be better if the last part were all caps? "Legends come together one last time... TO DESTROY EACH OTHER." Also, shouldn't there be an exclamation point? "Legends come together one last time... TO DESTROY EACH OTHER!"

Maybe then I'd find it & watch it.

That's not true - I'm a huge Star Trek nerd but I barely choked down Enterprise & Voyager. The new movie was a lot of fun. If they're not going to try to make a series like Deep Space Nine again, I can handle reinvention & big budgets. Although there should have a been a little Shatner in the new movie, you know?

You heard me!

Taking Thursdays Off

I was thinking of taking Thursdays off writing this blog. Having Self Help Radio be on a Tuesday severely screws with my ridiculous artificial structure for the blog, which, when SHR was on a Friday (or when I unveiled the podcast on Saturday), was all like:

MONDAY: Remind folks I put last week's show on the web site over the weekend.
TUESDAY: Mostly nonsensical "preface to" whatever theme I was covering that week.
WEDNESDAY: Equally inane "whither the theme?" post.
THURSDAY: Treading water.
FRIDAY: The show's on today! Or the show's on this weekend!

But I can't seem to get into any sort of rhythm with the show on Tuesday. & I tend to put the show up on Wednesday, which is sort of the new Saturday, so I can't not write something until Friday. That doesn't feel right. So I think I'll just take Thursdays off & maybe even Sunday or something. I am not in any way interesting enough to write something funny &/or/god forbid insightful more than three or four days a week.

I know, no one cares but me. Man, I wish I read this blog!

Also, if I take Thursdays off, I guess I have to start next week. Damn it!

This Week's Show, It's Up

Sorry for the perfunctory post, but other things are occupying your host's time. Please have a listen to the Self Help Radio show about dimensions - as well as this week's episode of the pop show Sugar Substitute - at selfhelpradio.net. Then make everyone you know listen to it. Form little clubs to discuss its possible merits & obvious failings. Write long academic papers about it. Copy it to a small external drive or your mp3 player & sleep with it under your pillow. Use it instead of prayer when you feel like asking something of imaginary deities. The show is for you. Have a little fun with it.

Pocket Holes

Oh boy! A website that teaches how to sew!

Not that I plan to learn how to sew. Self Help Radio is happening today at 3pm on 88.1 fm WMUL Huntington! I don't even have a needle & thread.

But I do have a hole in my right front pocket. I just put my change & keys in my left pocket. For the time being.

I don't think I've ever had a hole in my back pockets. I have had a hole in the back of my pants, of course, from my days as a professional cactus sitter. That's a part of my past I'd prefer to not discuss.

Neither my cats nor my dogs have a problem with pocket holes, but despite their insistence that they do have pockets, they don't have pants, & that's one thing they seem to insist more than anything else, except that they're hungry - "We have pockets!" they bark or meow. It's a little ridiculous, but they are ridiculous creatures.

I know, I did a show about pockets many moons ago. But when have I ever had to worry about fixing a hole in my dimension? When do pets talk about dimensions?

This is the material I have to work with.

The Thin Layers Between The Dimensions Are So Handily Separated

It is a super power one can sometimes get by exposure to radioactive Sevin Dust &/or chocolate with too much fudge within. It is not a super power that one would know how to use unless one was actively seeking to separate the thin layers between the dimensions. If you happen to have this super power, & you don't want to separate the thin layers between the dimensions, please read no further. Below is a brief overview of the process of separating the thin layers between the dimensions.

Please note: Self Help Radio is not responsible for irresponsible use of this information. Separating the thin layers between dimensions can sometimes cause unexpected & usually lethal release of something toxic from the dimension which is separated from our own by only a thin layer. Proceed with caution & always remember to be armed with either a spray can filled with a carbonated citrus-based liquid &/or a picture of a person on fire.

First: Dimensions don't just exist perpendicular with our own; they exist perpendicular to every point of our own. Therefore there are virtually an infinite number of dimensions.

Second: If you can open the thin layers that separate our dimensions, & you attempt to pull back a layer, you will only open one.

Third: It really depends where you start. Most people with the super power to be able to separate the thin layers between dimensions can open a layer with a finger or, at most, a grabby motion with the hand.

Fourth: There's no truth to the rumor that the better dimensions are accessible at groin level.

Fifth: Despite what one might think, dimensions being virtually infinite, & the ability separate the thin layers between them utterly contingent on the point at which you begin, it is entirely possible to avoid opening bad dimensions.

Sixth: Bad dimensions are the ones that can kill or otherwise hurt you.

Seventh: Bad dimensions are much, much easier to access than good dimensions. Which is to say, the thin layers that separate our dimension from bad dimensions are much easier to breach. Bad dimensions are shabbily kept.

Eighth: It is true that our dimension has a reputation for being a bad dimension.

Ninth: This may explain why so few being from the better dimension don't venture into ours terribly often.

Tenth: If you must travel into another dimension, good or bad, please make sure to leave open the thin layers that separate it from ours, or else you may never find your way back again. It's perfectly all right to pack a lunch.

More dimensional travel instructions may be available on tomorrow's Self Help Radio.

Sounding Like A Whiny Child Rethinking Its Options

Nothing puzzles more the inclusive mind than the frustrating possessive pronoun problem. To this day, it rankles to substitute the plural when not wanting to sound like a sexist dope. "If a person wants to use these facilities, they need to ask the manager on duty." How that grates. But you know what else grates? When people who should know better use the words "man" or "mankind" for the much more palatable "human" or "humanity." It seems just laziness or spite, if it's not outright hatefulness.

However, there isn't much of a problem with calling a single child "it," unless of course you know what gender it is. It might even be more offensive to assign it an arbitrary gender rather than waiting until one knows.

Also, lackluster cover versions of songs by performers who one knows can do a better job - a much better job - shouldn't be tolerated. The performers know who they are. It's simply irresponsible.

Further consideration of this post's title, which has generated eighty percent of its content, leads one to wonder perhaps if children ever reconsider their options. Would we let them? An acquaintance a few years ago referred to her child as a "little person." Never mind that the term was already in use for people of genetically short stature (there's even an organization called Little People Of America, although their web page hasn't been updated for three years), the acquaintance was attempting to stress to anyone unfortunate enough to be in earshot that her child was a person, damn it, just like grown-ups. Which seemed at the time saddening, since the poor little person probably wasn't getting a childhood as much as a little personhood. All those clinics & classes!

In any event, much like life, nothing has been resolved, nor any light shed on vexing problems. Apologies all around.

Whither Dimensions?

The scientifically correct guide to the first ten dimensions:

The first dimension: a dot, I guess.
The second dimension: flatland.
The third dimension: you're soaking in it,
The fourth dimension: time.
The fifth dimension: this is your four dimensions on drugs.
The sixth dimension: doubt.
The seventh dimension: what happens to you after you die.
The eighth dimension: what happens to you after what happens to you after you die.
The ninth dimension: what happens to you after you die, with commentary, deleted scenes & a gag reel.
The tenth dimension: space wars.

The next ten dimensions have not been validated scientifically but they have been color-coded. What really happens in those dimensions is just theory, although there's some guessing, too.

The eleventh dimension (the chartreuse dimension): Like standing in a long line except you're sitting & asleep.
The twelfth dimension (the off-white dimension): The feeling of being a tip jar.
The thirteenth dimension (the burnt umber dimension): In-between floors.
The fourteenth dimension (the other burnt umber dimension): Itchy.
The fifteenth dimension (the cheesecloth dimension): Inappropriate snuggling.
The sixteenth dimension (the holiday blue dimension): Cafeteria food.
The seventeenth dimension (the clear liquid dimension): What's that noise? Is that whining?
The eighteenth dimension (the bright fuchsia dimension): Lake house in a horror film. A very, very cliched horror film.
The nineteenth dimension (the evergreen dimension): No time.
The twentieth dimension (the pale red dimension): Dying FM Radio.

The other dimensions are discussed at great length in Dimension X. For those who can make it, please point your dimensional browsers there at the dimensional link now appearing in front of your computer. Please remember not to feed the computers in Dimension X. See you there.*

* & of course by "see you" I mean with my fifth eye.

Preface To Dimensions: Another Keen Observation About Those Joke Of The Day Emails

Almost exactly a year ago I talked about - on this here blog - those joke of the day emails one can subscribe to. I have one email account that I check irregularly which is kept nourished by daily infusions of that nonsense. So I read the awful humor, & the one today went something like this:

Some children are taken on a tour of the local police precinct to see what the working atmosphere of a cop is, or something like that. At one point in the tour, the cop shows them the ten most wanted criminals in the standard "wanted" poster format.

One precocious little pickle says to the cop, "Do you want to catch this one?"

Officer McTourguide replies, "Oh yes, he's a hardened criminal."

Says the tot, "Why didn't you just keep him after you took his picture?"

(Cue audience chuckling & going "awwww.")

I felt a weird shock of recognition - I realized something - as I read this, & here's what I discovered: these services are stealing jokes from children's comic books from the forties & fifties. You know, the Archie shit or Little Lotta or Richie Rich or comic versions of Looney Tunes or Walter Lantz or Terrytoons. Those are the kinds of jokes that ended up in the short six-panel one-page filler. Someone at "joke a day" has a stack of them he's had since his childhood - which are handy because he still lives at home - & he just tosses one in every three or four days.

Either that, or he's a big Bazooka Joe fan. You can just see the cop's feet in the air, with an exclamation point above his falling body, as the punchline is spat out.

It could be worse, I know - they could be dirty jokes. Stolen from Hustler magazine. From the 1970s.

Help! My pants are on fire!

Damn it! All that does is make people think I'm a liar! I'm not lying! My pants are on fire!

Let me take my burning pants off first - since no one wants to help me - there. Ooph. Great. They're ruined. & now I regret going commando today. & lest someone think that my pants caught fire because I told a lie - no. That particular canard, gleaned from a child's bit of taunting doggerel, has no basis in fact. Or else why don't the pants of every politician catch fire during every speech? Aha, you think if they believe what they say, even if it is a lie, for pants-igniting purposes, it may not be enough... Hmm.

Can I borrow your pants? Or would you happen to have a spare? I feel so naked here in the middle of your browser window - mainly because I AM naked in the middle of your browser window. Do you mind if I hide behind a bookmark or something?

Why my pants caught fire as you loaded this page I don't know. I just wanted to tell you that last night's episode of Self Help Radio, called somethingtown, is available for your aural edification at selfhelpradio.net. As an added bonus, the show Sugar Substitute finished the Indiepop Ds for me. That show is there too.

Please close this window now, or reload. I can sneak away during those times.

Gargle

I like to say the word "gargle." It's onomatopoeia. But it's not echoic - it's not the noise of gargling that made people call gargling gargling. It comes from the French word for throat.

When I was a kid, if I had to gargle something, I thought the rules were (in the absence of any adult telling me the proper way to gargle) that you had to try to say "gargle" while you gargled. So I naturally swallowed a lot of what I was gargling. I did that a lot when I was a kid - not gargled, but assumed there were certain rules that I followed which I mainly just made up. I think a lot of kids do that.

There'll be no gargling on Self Help Radio today which - you remember - is on 88.1 fm WMUL at 4pm rather than 6pm due to a soccer game being covered live at 7pm. So tune in if you can. This means you, all of Huntington. & some of Barboursville.

Swingin' Schedules

This only affects you if you live in Huntington, but due to a soccer game being aired on 88.1 fm WMUL tomorrow, Self Help Radio will be truncated to 90 minutes & air two hours earlier, at 4pm. Sugar Substitute will air at 5:30pm, & it's kinda important that it does, as the plan was to have the show - which is an indiepop show, after all - continue the Indiepop A To Z project by finishing the Ds. I so want to finish the Ds. You know?

So if you're in town, be aware. If you're not in town, you know where they'll end up the next day.

Excuse me, I must go read more disappointing news about American politics. I can't help it, I'm a disaster junkie.

Whither SomethingTown?

You know how you sometimes overexert yourself, most often physically, but sometimes mentally, & then a couple of days later some muscle or some other part of your body (could be your brain or your nerves) rebels & you've got this ache or pain or other condition that causes you to completely derail whatever plans you might have had because suddenly you have to deal with the excessive thing you did that, at the time, didn't cause any apparent discomfort but now, hours & maybe days after you finished it, it completely screws everything up?

Well, yes, it happens to me a lot but it has nothing to do with this week's theme.

This week is just an exploration of some adjective or noun or god forbid an abbreviation in front of the word "town." For example, & I never heard this once in my two decades living there, but imagine it was the hipster thing to do to call Austin "A-Town." Then someone wrote a song about it. Then the song was good, so I played it on my show. That's the idea behind this week's theme.

I specifically looked for that construction - I didn't look for town's nicknames, like "The Big Apple" or "The Armpit Of The Metroplex" (that's the nickname of my hometown of Garland, Texas) (or, if it isn't, it certainly should be) (& by the way, to give credit where it's due, I totally stole that from a Howard the Duck story written by the great Steve Gerber in which he calls Cleveland "the armpit of the universe"), I just looked for descriptions of towns in some way, avoiding more generic parts of towns ("downtown" or "uptown") & also just adding the word town to a named place ("London town" or "Chicago town"). It's very simple & the culling still left me with over seventy songs that I still have to sort out.

Other than that, what's up with you?

Preface To SomethingTown: How Big Is A Town Supposed To Be Anyway?

I am always disappointed when I discover that there aren't clearly defined terms in a hierarchy of growth for something. Let it be said now that the same is true for "towns." As the Wikipedia says, "A town is a type of settlement ranging from a few hundred to several thousand (occasionally hundreds of thousands) inhabitants, although it may be applied loosely even to huge metropolitan areas; the precise meaning varies between countries & is not always a matter of legal definition. Usually, a 'town' is thought of as larger than a village but smaller than a 'city,' though there are exceptions to this rule." Of course there are! But wouldn't it be easier to have this continuum:

village < town < city < metropolis < megalopolis

(Interestingly, my Safari spellcheck is not showing "megalopolis" as a misspelled word - when did THAT enter out lexicon?)

Also, what would be before village? Burg? Hamlet? Hovel?

In any event, I think it depends on where you're from - & your perception of where you're from - how you define something as a town, since the authorities have not seen fit to define it for us. For example, I grew up in Garland, Texas, which currently has a population of over two hundred thousand people & is the tenth-largest city in Texas. But compared to Dallas, it seems like a town. But Dallas is such a sprawling provincial place lacking in personality that, compared to real cities like New York or Chicago or San Francisco, it's really just a town. Which makes Garland, what? A village?

No, a suburb, which is quite an insulting term now that I think about it.

Huntington, where I now live, has around fifty thousand folks, & I'm sure many people here think it's a city, but it's not really a city. It's a town. I think virtually every large gathering of people & buildings in West Virginia is at best a town. We might have more people if we include the "metropolitan area," but we're still a bunch of towns.

Is that insulting? Would they rather be suburbs? Or, god forbid, exurbs?

I was going to add that sometimes we use the word "town" (as in saying, "I'm going down to Austin town") to show off a sense of familiarity. Like saying "London town" or "New York town." But that wouldn't figure into the mathematical equation I long for. Something like this:

Over 1 million inhabitants: metropolis
100,000 to 1 million inhabitants: city
25,000 to 100,000 inhabitants: town
5,000 to 25,000 inhabitants: township
100 to 5,000 inhabitants: village
2 - 100 inhabitants: hamlet
1 inhabitant: hermitage

It needs work. But it's a start!

Grumpage In, Grumpage Out

It's late Wednesday but I'll bet that Blogger will date this on Thursday. Agh! I am unreliable. That's what I get for watching "I Love You Man" instead of writing in my blog.

Um, well, it was a, you know, typical Wednesday thing, you know, did the show yesterday, it's now up at selfhelpradio.net for you to listen to if you wanna when you wanna. As you wanna. You wanna?

I record the show with a clever device that digitally swallows the sound via magic cords of wires & converts the show into small computer-sized bits of data which it stores on a little chip the kind of which you also find in digital cameras & androids' hearts. Well, I forgot to dump last week's shows off the chip when I dumped them on my computer, so I couldn't record "Sugar Substitute." Which makes me sad but what can you do? Other that, you know, stop making so many dumb & tiny mistakes.

That's really all I wanted to say. Is there anything else? Have a nice day!

Who Shall Survive --- Radio Show Day?!

Imagine - a world without radio!
Imagine still - a world with radio but without ears!
Conceive - a nightmare from which you cannot but awaken!
Explain - why are you waking up at 6pm?
Forget it - turn the radio on!
Make sure - you've got it tuned to 88.1 fm WMUL!
Recoil - Self Help Radio is on at 6pm!
Pay attention - you may actually learn something!
Pay more attention - this is good music you're listening to!
Don't leave - Sugar Substitute is on at 8pm!
Quake - or go to the bathroom, but make it fast!
Worry - because even when it's over, it's not over!
Check it out - it'll be online at selfhelpradio.net before you know it!
Be afraid - it happens EVERY WEEK!

Whither Nine?

Of interest primarily to eschatologists & the author of this "Self Help Radio" blog is this notice: this is post number 666.

This is peripherally related to this week's "Self Help Radio" insofar as this week's theme is the number nine (9) & the number 666 can be perceived by even slightly self-aware numerologists as 999 upside down. Please rotate your computer clockwise to confirm.

The number 666 should have simply enjoyed the same associations its brethren 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 777, 888, & 999 have enjoyed since humans began to count &/or play with pocket calculators. However, the pranksters who wrote the last chapter of the Bible, called "Revelation," asserted mischievously that 666 will be the "number of the beast," to further freak out anyone who might, years after it was drunkenly written & read out loud to much mirth, take seriously something written by people who still believed the sun rotated around the earth & were centuries away from the germ theory of disease.

In modern times, the number of the beast has enjoyed popularity mainly with heavy metal bands, as it is easy to write & can be shouted even when devastatingly inebriated. When the writers of "Revelation" rejected 777 as the "number of the beast," they did the genre of heavy metal a great favor. Imagine what screaming that number would have been like - perhaps an awkward abbreviation, like that of the "www" in URLs as "dub dub dub"? It would have seriously impeded most drunken louts' ability to rock.

Some poor souls are so terrified of the number 666 that they have coined a phobia term for it: hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. It is said that even telling someone that they are hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic will trigger an attack. However, since the word is longer than most words a person will hear in his or her life (unless they are German), some specialists believe it is the length of the word & not the word's meaning that terrifies the afflicted. Most studies are of course planned to settle the issue.

This particular "Self Help Radio" blog entry, numbered 666, has nothing whatsoever to do with Christian end-time prophecy. While it is rumored that Satan himself enjoys "Self Help Radio," gullible souls who fear the power of this impotent number might well be advised that even Satan himself doesn't think that Satan exists. Therefore, a single blog entry, which will most probably not even be read by anyone outside the post's writer, has little or no power to adversely affect any reader. & certainly writing six hundred & sixty-six entries about what has been described as a wholly unremarkable radio show can be said to be a minor achievement!

Please enjoy the rest of your day free from Biblical doom-predictions & any other numerological noodling.

Preface To Nine: Up At Four-Thirty

This has been a weird morning. I was awakened by the dogs at around 4:30 am (it's hard to believe it was just an hour ago) because there were folks noisily walking down the street & the dogs needed to report that to me. I got dressed, after being all paranoid about someone trying to break into the house, & went outside to find some of our recycling strewn on the street. (I think I finally got up because I heard a car crushing a can.) I picked it up, then noticed that one of the bins was missing.

A quick word: we pay a commercial company here in Huntington to pick up the recycling. In Austin, it's part of what you get with electricity & trash pick-up. Austin does it weekly. Here, it's biweekly & some folks say (we've not experienced this) that they sometimes forget to come entirely. Also, they don't take glass. Who doesn't recycle glass? Anyway.

I assumed that, since it was a lot of aluminum cans, someone had simply taken the kit & caboodle & drove off. (In Austin, some folks on recycling day would drive up & down the street & take the aluminum out of the bins.) But something compelled me to walk down the street - it's a lovely morning, all of 60 degrees, & an almost-full moon sat in the western sky lighting the area in its gauzy way - & I found the bin on the porch of a house about seven or eight houses down.

This house is a rental & the kids who live there - & they are kids, college kids - I met only once, when our movers were trying to get the semi through our very narrow street - & they were very drunk, asking me questions like, "How old are you? Do you like to drink?" I told them that my wife & I had just moved in & that prompted them to tell me, in their drunken intensity, to NOT SIGN THE PETITION. Apparently the neighbors have been circulating a petition to get them to move - for their loud music & late-night carousing - the boys who live there apparently have a punk rock band, but from what I've heard it sounds more metal - although I of course haven't been living here long enough to see such a thing. I was mainly concerned about the movers getting the trunk out of here. (& interestingly, none of the neighbors I've talked to have seen any petition.)

Anyway, I took the bin back - it was still three-quarters full - I can only assume that it was a stupid drunken impulse on someone's part, or else it could be that the bins are from Austin & say "Austin recycles" on them. Austin is considered a very cool town, of course, in this part of the world. One kid at WMUL even told me, "That's a great city, yeah. Never been there, but I hear it's a great city."

Part of me thinks that I may end up causing a commotion if they come out & find it gone, although they're probably drunk & asleep by now. I'm sober & very, very awake. It's annoying. & I'll probably stay awake until the recycling folks come.

This of course has nothing to do with Self Help Radio, to which you really should be listening & on which I really should be working. The wife is in Pittsburgh, looking at tongues (I couldn't make such things up), so it's just me, the ever-alert pups, & that moon, slowly descending as a very long day begins.

One Day Later, Two Shows For You

Last night, a storm razed Cincinnati - rain poured into the streets of this venerable American city & washed it away as though it were a mound of crud on the filthy shoulder of America. The same storm, its voraciousness comparable only to its intensity, hammered Lexington like a coked-up roofer destroying the very domicile he was building. (Not such a great metaphor, since a storm didn't create Lexington, but I'll stick with it because I once knew a coked-up roofer who was always falling through holes he made in other people's roofs.) Then, Lexington successfully flooded & drowning, the monster storm turned its eyes eastward & saw a tiny hamlet on the Ohio River, unpretentious, unprepossessing, unpopular, & the storm opened its maw & gave out a roar. & one brave disc jockey looked into the blackened western skies & said, "No! I shall make radio tonight! I shall not let this travesty of nature keep me from mine appointed duties!" & into the sprinkly early evening he drove...

Actually, I'm pretty sure Cincinnati & Lexington are okay. & the storm took a right at Ashland. Better bourbon down that way, I hear. It was a little anticlimactic, what with the crazy radar images the neighbors were showing us. So I went & did not only a Self Help Radio (theme this week: flowers) but also the first episode of a pop show called Sugar Substitute. Both were recorded in my usual manner & are available for listening at selfhelpradio.net for those with the inclination. I'll be happy if you enjoy it.

I need to split, I feel more purple prose emerging from me, like mighty Athena clawing her way from great Zeus' head, her first battle a battle to live!

You Know What Day It Is

It's true, it's Tuesday (truesday?) & I've been gathering all the flowers I intend to play on the radio tonight for Self Help Radio's show about - well - flowers. In case I didn't tell you (& I don't read this blog either, so I'm not sure how I'd know), Self Help Radio has been moved up to 6pm due to something I said to the King Of Eight O'Clock. I'm not sure what I said (I'm usually inebriated by then), but he contacted the nice folks at WMUL & they said I had to be done by eight, so they moved Self Help Radio. That's 6 to 8pm tonight, Tuesday, August 4, at 88.1 fm WMUL, live in Huntington & all around the tri-state region. That means you, Chesapeake. I know you're listening. Don't be coy. I'll record the show & archive it as soon as I can.

But wait! The King Of Eight O'Clock is a forgiving sort, so despite his displeasure with me & his tendency to prefer trained seals as television companions for Tuesday night reality shows, he's allowed me to present, from eight to ten, a pop show called "Sugar Substitute." (Yes, I totally ripped the name off from the awesome song by Luxuriator. I hope they don't sue.) I'll archive that, too, just so you can understand later when the King Of Eight O'Clock sets his trained seals on me. [Insert joke here about how details my death will be 'fishy.'] [Wait, don't. The King Of Eight O'Clock hates puns.]

So I'd better prepare. Four hours on the radio! I'll need a shave, a nap, some oxycontin, & a sandwich. In that order.

Eastern Standard Time

So here's something I just don't understand about living more or less close to the East Coast: prime time starting at 8pm. Do the people here stay up late? Or work late? Because they sure as hell don't get up to go to work late.

As you know, I've just recently relocated to lovely West Virginia from lovely Texas. Before this, I didn't know if I'd ever leave Texas. I had a nice job, some phenomenal apron strings which kept me miserably tied to my mother, & absolutely no idea why the hell I'd leave Austin except that the summers there were getting more & more unbearable & the hill country was slowly being desertified. Also, of course, the place was filling up with northerners. Carpetbaggers! Come to steal our women! Anyway.

"Central" & "Mountain" time has prime time start at 7pm, with the nightly news at the most reasonable hour of 10pm. This meant that funny talk shows can come on at 10:30 &, if you're a kid, say, in the 1980s, you can stay up to 11:30 to watch the first half hour of Letterman before you conk out. Imagine! I would never have gotten to see the Late Show if I grew up here, not just because electricity is a recent development here (just kidding Mountain State!) but also because it was on too late! A late Late Show would have sucked for a high school kid who had to be at school at 7:15am or else there'd be no parking spaces.

I remember thinking it was some sort of fictional conceit, like soda machines that say "Soda Machine" in the pre-product-placement days in movies & television, that people on TV would say "News at eleven." "It's not the real world," I would think. "So the news comes on at eleven." But no. It's true! The news comes on at eleven! What's up with that?

I just don't get it. Is it a daylight savings thing? Since television culture began in New York, I suppose it started then. Damn it, I've gotta go do research now. If you know, tell me. If not - I'll look it up.

Whither Flowers?

I know, I know, I know. Most everyone who does some sort of radio show where they get to select the music (as opposed to those who have their music chosen for them by corporate computers who manipulate focus-group tests to favor artists they've poured pots of gold into) does some sort of theme show at least every once in a while. What separates Self Help Radio from the rest (I like to think) is that the show doesn't repeat itself with regularity, it doesn't usually tailor the theme to temporal situations (though there are exceptions), & it goes out of its way to avoid themes of a broad nature (like, I don't know, "love" or "cars") which anyone with an iPod & a couple of friends could do at a moment's notice. This is not to denigrate those sorts of shows, it's just not the way I want to do Self Help Radio. I want to explore themes that require a little bit of time, thought, crate-digging, finagling, desperation, tears.

So, um, why "flowers"? Isn't that one of the easy ones?

Ha ha! You misunderstand my love of arbitrary limitations! For this week on Self Help Radio, not only will the show not be a simply free-for-all about "flowers," but the songs I play will - must - have to simply be either songs called "flowers" or songs about a type of flower pluralized. So there'll be songs called "Roses" or "Daffodils" or "Violets." Them's the rules. There may be a very beautiful song called "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" but unless it's called "The Tulips," it can't be on this week's Self Help Radio.

You see? Saddling myself with preconditions that no one but me cares about - that's the Self Help Radio way.

By the way, my apologies to the nice bakery who wrote hoping I was doing a show about flour. One day, friends. One day.

Preface To Flowers: Really? Flowers? When Did You Become Like Every Other Lame "Theme" Radio Show Out There?

Wow, the title of this blog post is really hostile. It's making me defensive.

Can I answer tomorrow? I'm catching up on "Weeds" & "Nurse Jackie."

Weird. I think whoever titles these blog posts is really disappointed in me.

Successful Endeavor

This curlicue just arrived from the horn of plenty:

"Success! Last night's Self Help Radio contained very little in the way of offense nor mistaken, with the possibility of cheerleaders. Host did not embarrass self nor company except in usual ways, so let's consider upping dosage. Meanwhile, web-bots used smoke breaks to upload show to selfhelpradio.net - consider beginning smear campaign to encourage ne'er-do-well listeners. Kudos all around. Expect closer scrutiny in near future."

Imagine! Self Help Radio on the air & recorded for posterity. The corporation is happy. You'll be happy. Go listen!

Act Together

There are a couple things you should know (perhaps) about me.

One, at the moment, I am gainfully unemployed. This is not a matter of financial hardship - the wife is taking care of me in a kind of quid pro quo because I kept a roof over her head while she was getting her PhD. So I'm not looking for your sympathy. In fact, I kind of expect your envy - I hang out with my dogs & cats, listen to music, surf the internet & read all day. Occasionally I nap. It's been quite delicious.

Two, despite all that, or maybe because of that, I am woefully disorganized. I'm trying, but the time just gets away from me. Which is strange, because time seems to be moving much more slowly these days than when I had a job & looked forward to getting off work & getting stuff done before bedtime. Maybe there's a psychological explanation or condition to explain why. I dunno.

In any event, the two things I am sharing seem to work against one another, & one of the casualties is this damn blog. I need to just wake up every morning, snort some grapefruit juice, & write something here. But I put it off, I procrastinate, I put it at the bottom of my list of things to do. After nap, usually. & when I wake up, there's more pressing matters. But there aren't! I'm just lame.

I had stuff prepared for yesterday but blew it. Read a book about punk rock. Watched "True Blood." My busy life.

I want to be better. I'll try to be better. Meanwhile, enjoy the danger of Self Help Radio today, if you're in the Tri-State Area, at 8pm on 88.1 fm WMUL. Let's hope I get it recorded all properly. Sigh.

Whither Danger?

Danger is (& I quote) "liability or exposure to harm or injury; risk; peril; an instance or cause of peril; menace."

More than that, danger implies (& I still quote) "harm that one may encounter. Danger is the general word for liability to all kinds of injury or evil consequences, either near at hand & certain, or remote & doubtful: to be in danger of being killed."

Doesn't that sound like a radio show to you? No? What about radio personalities? Haven't you seen Play Misty For Me? No? Then go see it. You'll figure out how dangerous it is being a deejay, all alone, at night, in a radio booth, playing songs. For weirdos. Psychopathic weirdos.

Oh sure, it's more likely to be killed by a drunk driver, or in a mugging, or in a war, or in a terrorist attack, or onstage by a fortuitously thrown tomato, but why not on the radio? It can be dangerous. There's a government agency just waiting for the programmer to fail, man. To levy fines, to battle in court cases. Sure, it's not A-Team dangerous, but it's at least Perry Mason dangerous. & that dude only lost one case. Only one case! That's dangerous, man.

I'm just saying. There's a reason Self Help Radio would want to explore danger. It's a possibility.

Preface To Danger: The Most Dangerous Radio Show Of All

It was in Africa, a long time ago. I was traveling with a group of hypochondriac male prostitutes who had taken a wrong turn at Scarsdale. We had boarded a steamer to hang out with some party animal/Woodstock burnout named Kurtz at the Heart Of Darkness Bar & Grill when a Belgian waffler with a transistor radio & dead flies in his hair tuned into a frequency that is apparently only available on the equator.

I was fortunate - I had a head cold, which I always get when I have a cold head, which is the case when you sleep under an air conditioner & then wake up & go outside & it's muggy & drippy & over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. So I didn't get the full dose of this radio show - it came at me muffled, like a radio show wearing mufflers, yet it still knocked me across the deck.

The prostitutes grabbed their ears & fell to the floor, writhing. They had been doing that all morning, but this time their ears were bleeding. I knew something was wrong. Summoning all the strength I could muster I began screaming the lyrics to "Macarthur Park" while simultaneously plunging my fingers deep into my ears (you know, exactly like Richard Harris). I rose with great difficulty, kicked the Belgian's spastic body out of the way, & stomped on the evil radio until it could broadcast no more.

I was safe, & other passengers, not close enough to the broadcast to actually hear it, but still suffering the damages, emerged from below deck to help me remove my fingers from my ears. No one could explain. No one, except the cragged & deaf boatswain who lit his finger to light his pipe & told us the story of the most dangerous radio show of all.

At least I like to think he did. He'd been deaf his whole life & never learned sign language, so he mainly made a lot of noise & laughed a lot. We were all very polite. He seemed to need to tell the story.

I never found out where the show came from, or even what it was called. I hope I never do. But I'm pretty sure the host was Dick Clark. Or someone who admired Dick Clark. Counting down hit records, stuff like that. Oh god. It was awful.

I Just Spent Four Hours Burying The Cat

Four hours burying the cat? Yes, he wouldn't keep still, wriggling about, howling.

Luckily the cats are fine. I just always hear high-pitched Monty Python pepperpots when I realize that I spent the whole day doing stuff & neglected this fine blog. That won't do, not with Self Help Radio back & ready to stumble. Er, rumble.

Speaking of stumbling, the first Self Help Radio on WMUL went tolerably well, although I made a ton of dumb mistakes, not the least of which is screwing up the recording of the show. (Sigh. It's like I am perpetually an awkward thirteen year old.) Since there's no recording of my first show, I put the playlist up & a mix of the music at selfhelpradio.net. I thought of leaving blank spaces so you can imagine my airbreaks - but your imagination is doubtless better than mine, so I'd hate to have to try to follow THAT.

Um, well, er, it's raining in Huntington & I just met a scary fellow named Gary at a dimly-lit Kroger while shopping for corn meal. You'll excuse me if I have nothing else to say at this particular point in time.

& don't worry! The cats are fine!

Go Time!

Wow, so, on a Friday afternoon in early May, 2008, Self Help Radio left the Austin airwaves & moved into a spare bedroom at my place. It had its fun once a week, making fake radio shows that some people called podcasts, & collected disability payments from the government. (It's not quite right in the head.) Both of us hung out, enjoyed the music, waited for my wife to get a job somewhere else, just so we could leave Austin town in search of other radio grounds.

Well. Wife got the job & we found other radio grounds. Tonight, at 8pm West Virginia time, Self Help Radio returns to the air. The space aliens who'll receive the signal in four hundred years need not worry any longer. After fourteen Earth-months, they can be satisfied that my reports from (& thus confirmations of) the dying human civilization will continue. I do it for them, you know.

The theme is "all night long." The radio station is WMUL. The show is almost ready, although it's been throwing up all morning. If you're in town, please tune in - it's 88.1 fm. If you're not, check selfhelpradio.net tomorrow or the day after - it'll be sitting there, looking a little green, but strangely happy, I'm sure, to be Self Help Radio back on the radio.

Wow! Hey!

The Slight Return Of Self Help Radio

Hello. As you may or may not know (& of course didn't care), the wheel of fortune turned & shifted the Self Help Radio family (dysfunctional though it surely is) from the giant state of Texas to the smaller & more pancreas-shaped state of West Virginia. It's an age-old story - career bureaucrat saved from his apparently lifelong career by a more ambitious & undoubtedly smarter spouse's undoubtedly smarter & more ambitious career - & Self Help Radio has been fortunate to crash-land in a town which, unlike a lot of other places in the United States, has a non-commercial radio station which, though attached to a University, allows community volunteers the opportunity to show up, get involved, & shine on the airwaves. Here in Huntington, West Virginia, that station is WMUL - which, strangely enough, doesn't call itself "THE MULE!" - & the kind college staff there are allowing Self Help Radio onto their airwaves on Tuesdays this summer from 8pm to 10pm Eastern Yippee Time.

But wait! I hear you say. I've clicked on that link & the station doesn't appear to stream. Yes, it's true. They only stream their award-winning sports coverage. But you don't have to worry - I'll continue to archive the shows as soon as it occurs to me over at selfhelpradio.net, & although I'll have to juggle the days some, I'll once again continue the daily blogging about that the themes are, incoherently & inchoately, so it won't be like I've been gone for three weeks & you didn't even notice.

Tomorrow, then, 8pm, Eastern time: Self Help Radio isn't really on "all night long," but the songs will suggest it is. Welcome the show back! Listen if you're local, download if you're not. It's a new era of the same old Self Help Radio!

Summer Vacation? Summer Hiatus!

It's not quite a vacation Self Help Radio is taking more than a forced relocation. (It never should have gotten married!) But like a vacation, it's being packed into a rented minivan & driven across the country. Unlike a vacation, it'll settle at its destination. Please drive safely & don't shoot bottle rockets at Self Help Radio on the fourth of July. No matter how much you love freedom.

Last week's episode (about lullabies) (it's also the last Self Help Radio in Austin!) is available for your drowsy enjoyment at selfhelpradio.net. Also available are a few Self Help Radio Extras (click to see what they are) & a year's worth of Self Help Radios in the Archive. Listen to them again for the first time if ever. & please don't begrudge me the silence for the next week. Truly, we'll be on the road. Again. Not necessarily making music with my friends, but you never know. Memphis is on the way!

See you (I hope) in a week or so (or so) with new Self Help Radio news (newsy)!

Preface To Lullabies: A Day Without Sleep

It's probably no surprise that a fellow who does a show called Self Help Radio doesn't sleep too well, & it's absolutely true. I am generally in bed late & out of bed early - in late because I am drinking & listening to music at all hours, up early to feed the flock, who all demand to be fed at 9am sharp or they start feasting on my eyes. But today was awful. Here's what I did today:

Up at some ungodly hour around 7am or so (after getting to bed at 3am for no good reason except I was drinking whiskey & watching an awful Vin Diesel movie) because our sick pup made a ruckus while the other two pups were taken out for their walk (not by me - if it were up to me, there would've been no walk & therefore no ruckus). We had an inspector come at 10am - we're selling the house, you know, since we're moving in a week - & although he let me doze drowsily while losing spectacularly at a very old & silly computer game a friend at work gave me I had to go across the street & hide at a neighbor's when the buyer came to check out the inspection. Will he buy? Does the house have termites? WILL THEY FIND THE BODIES? Stay tuned!

It's been very hot in Austin (this week alone the temperatures are supposed to all be at 100 degrees or above) (that's some crazy small number in Celsius {which still manages to make you sweat}, I report for my Finnish fans) (correction: my hypothetical Finnish fan) so the trudge across the street caused me to do what hot weather inevitably does, which is slowly lower myself to the scalding asphalt & nap. But the wife got the dogs to drag me in, & four hours later we could return to our soon-to-be-sold home, which was all aglow with that rosy "new inspection" look.

Then the wife told me I had to call all the magic numbers to set up cable, internet, water, electricity, gas, recycling, phone, religious services, high blood pressure screenings, school lunches, drug corner locations, masseuses, bingo, shock therapy, & countless other preparations for our move next week. I started with drug corners first, & learned that my oxycontin needs will be very well met in Huntington. In any event, the afternoon passed as I spoke to more non-Americans than Americans to set up needed services in an American city. Such is life.

I had hoped to nap, but no, it was not to be. The wife had sneaked away for some reason that I didn't care enough to ask about, so I managed a little dinner-like action & managed to sleep from around 8 to 9:30, when I was awakened by two cats & three dogs discussing amongst themselves the best way to pry my succulent eyeballs out of the sockets without otherwise ruining the chewiness of the optic nerve. I managed a hazy maneuver to feed them all, chatted with a friend about email woes, watched the Daily Show & am now writing in this blog, all on roughly five & a half hours sleep in around forty-eight hours.

How dull is this? I'm going to start doing it every day! But the wife is home, so I probably should put some pants on. Ciao babe!

The Bad Blogger Is Sheepish

I know, I totally ignored this blog last week, but it was because last week's Self Help Radio was about taking turns, & I thought it was your turn to write in this blog & my turn to read it. So who didn't fulfill whose side of the bargain? I thought so. If only I had let your know it was your turn, it might've been exciting.

(You can go & listen to last week's show in the usual place. You don't even have to wait your turn. Just go!)

Self Help Radio is packing up & getting ready to leave Austin. It's a wistful moment, since the radio show was born here & grew up here (if it can truly be said to have grown up) & thought it would die here. It had a dumbass Texas attitude about it that might not play well in other states in our union - it's a little trepidatious about ending up in West Virginia, which is only the 41st largest state of the Union (Maryland, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware & little Rhode Island are smaller, but they certainly seem like most of them would be bigger, right?) & which is 37th in population, with barely two million inhabitants (if that). By contrast, Texas is the largest contiguous state (you always have to mention Alaska somewhere here), & is second in population after California. It's the exact opposite of the Beverly Hillbillies going to Hollywood. Not that I have any resemblance to Uncle Jed - yet.

What might happen? You have to stay tuned. I will have to keep you posted. It means that I will have to be a better blogger & you may have to learn to read. Luckily there are few if any reading skills for listening to the show - just download & listen. It's so easy. Do I have to spell it out for you? Oh, wait.

Whither Taking Turns?

Speaking of taking turns, since it's my turn to flee the city I've spent half my life in (as it will be your turn one day), I have moved the Self Help Radio website to a different, more commercial server. (A very good friend hosted it for me for a long, long, long time, but since I don't really imagine that I'll ever live in Austin again, I felt a little guilty with him hosting it still.) (Also, my long association with the University of Texas is coming to an end {this Friday!} & my email address is parked there. So I needed a new email address. I wonder why all of this is still in parentheses?) My new web hosting place is going to be my new email address: gary at selfhelpradio.net (just click it, you'll see; I didn't want my first email to be spam) (actually my first email was an email to me I wrote from my old address, & I insulted me - sometimes I don't even know why I bother trying to be friends with me).

It may interest you that this week's show - about taking turns - has been one of the hardest I've ever had to scrounge around for. I can do it, but if you have any ideas - songs about my turn, your turn, our turn, taking turns, etc. - email me at my new address. I know this is an understatement, but I need all the help I can get.

The whole point of this nonsense was to say something about not writing in this blog yesterday because I was being busy moving the site, which is big, you know, with all the radio shows you still haven't listened to. What's wrong with you? Now if you'll excuse me. It's my turn to find songs about taking turns - again.

We All Stopped Using Beethoven, Sure Enough

Please read this important announcement to the end to get the maximum full effect.

Saddened as I am that there are just two more Self Help Radios for the month of June, I do remember the happy days of family vacations, when little shots of guava replaced actual human contact for the screaming unhappiness which defined the day-to-day life of the robots we were assigned as parents. I do so enjoy contestants & deadlines, so continuing Self Help Radio as a podcast long past its due date proved both diligent, bohemian & disarming. Truly will sadness fill my daily bread until I can muster up the strings to just start punching away at the very bag which perhaps now rests at the bottom of the sea. Such salt & crust is a young man's whistle - I'm just an old community radio kind of guy with nonetheless hunkering down on the nevermore.

Still, survey it while you must, because although YOU have kindly forgotten SELF HELP RADIO, it falls in the forest despite the lack of repeated listenings. Please don't get defensive - you've been bust, we know, with your jumble sales & your house fires, & your repeated deployments to Iraq &/or Wal-Mart. No one here thinks any of the less of the you of the time. We just wish you'd occasionally - like in the girt old days - stop your crackling long enough for a wink & a winning smile. That'll show 'em!

This week's Self Help Radio features excerpts from the award-winning-nominated radio play "Escape From Self Help Radio." You may not want to miss it. & while you're there, try the Self Help Radio Extra. It is not named Susan & it does not have extra calories because of strip clubs.

You may go now. Further relinquishing is not allowed.

Finally! May's Self Help Radio Extra In June! (Part 2)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's still June. So let's call it Self Help Radio Extra June. I am so ashamed.

Have a listen to Self Help Radio Extra & hear new & old tunes featuring the likes of the Chameleons, Vic Godard, the Bodines, the Russian Futurists, Mélanie Pain, & lots more, including my favorite: a newly discovered song by one of my favoritest band in the universe, the Virgin-Whore Complex, who released two records in the late 90's & then disappeared, to my great dismay.

Have a listen. & listen to the new Self Help Radio tomorrow, which is all about escape. You can't escape it!

Finally! May's Self Help Radio Extra In June!

Okay, it's not here yet. I know, you've been waiting all month. All last month, any way. Tonight, as I sat around gathering a month's worth of snappy tunes to share with you, suddenly, without any warning, unsuspecting, surprising, unexpected, abrupt, unannounced - well, because I wasn't watching television, listening to music, & all - out of nowhere

RAINSTORM!

So I'll do it tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Whither Escape?

Why do people escape? Perhaps they're incarcerated - or about to be. (I've dabbled in bail bondsmanship & bounty hunting, it's true. I'm a close personal friend of Colt Seaver.) Maybe they're in a difficult situation - abusive spouse, abusive parents, abusive pets - & actually need to escape to save their lives. Some people just want to "get away" - escape to the islands, to the spa, to a romantic spot. But these are physical escapes. Sometimes you need to escape from your life, like with daydreaming, or listening to music in headphones, or by drinking alcohol & taking drugs. (Mmmmm.) (I was mmmming the headphones. What did you think?)

To get more sciencey, you can escape a planet's gravity to get to space (escape velocity!). To get more sciencey & chemicalish, you can be a gas or a virus escaping from a test tube. To get more grammary, something can simply disappear - a word escaping one's memory. To get more computery, you can be a key that one hits to try to navigate away from a page with cute Japanese girls on it when one's supervisor is bearing down.

Oo, oo, I missed one - you can escape something that might have happened if you hadn't been paying attention or you can escape something bad that happened with a minimum of damage - "I escaped the accident!" That one escaped me.

Is Self Help Radio an "escape"? It is for me. I escape there every week. Sometimes I'm actually confined there, so I have to also escape FROM Self Help Radio. Which is why of course I will have produced the hit serial "Escape From Self Help Radio" to be broadcast in the past during the time when there were hit serials (I will have had gotten Republic Serials to produce it, & hopefully I will have cajoled hit serial star Buster Crabbe to have starred in it) once I invent a time machine. The script is aces, though. Or was. Or will be. Damn. I can't get this time travel lingo correct.

In any event, whatever you're trying to escape from, I hope Self Help Radio is your port in a storm this week. In any event, it will have nothing to do with Journey's Escape. Which is fine. I stopped believing a lot time ago.

Preface To Escape: I Am No Steve McQueen

Oh, sure, THAT didn't need to be said. It's so blatantly obvious that I can even bold & italicize the word "that" (which was capitalized for effect) & it doesn't even begin to convey the idiocy of the comparison. Viz. Oh, sure, THAT didn't need to be said. But what makes you such an expert on Steve McQueen? Here are some disturbing facts about Steve McQueen that might make you a little more humble when you're poo-pooing a person jokingly comparing himself to the star of The Great Escape, among other films:

1. He died from mesothelioma. Know what that is? Do you? Well, it's not a cool way to die. He died from exposure to asbestos! Compare that to how David Carradine died. Okay, well, that's just humiliating. Never mind.

2. He was supposed to be at the Polanski home the night Manson's robots killed Sharon Tate & the others there. In fact, it's said he was at the top of Manson's list of celebrities who were supposed to die to bring on Manson's dumbass race war. Okay, that's kinda cool. I mean, to be marked for death by Charles Manson, that's the kind of celebrity that, in this day & age, is reserved for status moments like being shot in the face by the Vice President.

3. As he was dying, he visited the Reagans (just about to be installed as King & Queenly of America) & they apparently got Billy Graham to get him to accept Jesus into his heart. Wow, talk about wiping away a lifetime of cool!

That last one is a cheap shot, because I am really nothing at all in any way like Steve McQueen. Morrissey, for example, would never put a giant poster of me up in his home. I don't even know if there is a giant poster of me available, whereas there are millions of McQueen. Furthermore, the one time in my life I've ridden a motorcycle, all I got was a sunburn & some heat exhaustion. Also, I've never been in the movies & never kissed Ali McGraw. (Both might happen, though. Also: both probably won't.)

Why can't I escape these ridiculous comparisons that I myself invent on my blog between me & famous dead celebrities? It is a problem I suppose I have to live with.

What Is This "Self Help Radio Summer Vacation" Anyway?

I know, you've gone to the Self Help Radio website to download this week's show, which is about knocking, & you were perusing the upcoming themes & you looked down the list & you were like, "What the hell? What's the theme in three weeks? The first week of July? July fourth? What about a show about flags? Or fireworks? Or the Declaration of Independence? That's a show I'd want to hear? What's up?"

Well, what was threatened last year is coming true this one: the Self Help Radio Party Van is leaving Austin for good. We'll be leaving in July & it'll take a few days to get there, set up shop, unpack the CDs & stuff, & get my bearings. I expect the moving to a completely different part of the country will undo or otherwise unloose whatever bearings I may still have, so I am giving myself a month to go through the process of "getting" the "bearings." Maybe it won't take as long. Maybe I will go through Self Help Radio Withdrawal. Maybe there'll be only a week off. But. I've never moved so far away before. I think a month is just right.

Now stop worrying. You'll be fine. Go listen to last week's show. Go. Go!

Oops I'm running late!

Yeah, I'm a weasel. I've been too busy during my last weeks at work to steal time to write in this blog.

Wait. What? Last weeks at work?

Yes, it's true. I am leaving my job in two American weeks (compare them with other country's weeks - you'll see the difference) (spoiler alert: we work more) to leave the city of Austin behind & embark on a strange new journey - which will of course take Self Help Radio - to... where?

It's really quite underwhelming. I'm a little embarrassed about even trying to create some suspense about it. But I will. More information to come. Just rest assured that, for at least the month of June, Self Help Radio will continue to produce a radio show that virtually NO ONE will listen to, out of spite or out of ignorance, & then will take a break while the offices relocate.

This week? Knocking. How can you miss that? It's the one skill you have! The rest, well. You have to lie about them on your resume!

Whither Knocking?

A terrible dilemma is upon me. Oh wait. I might have used that word (dilemma) wrongly. Let me check the Economist's Guide To Common Solecisms:

This is not just any old awkwardness, it is one with horns, being, properly, a form of argument (the horned syllogism) in which you find yourself committed to accept one of two propositions each of which contradicts your original contention. Thus a dilemma offers the choice between two alternatives, each with equally nasty consequences.

Oh. Then it's not really a dilemma. The original contention, one supposes, is that I am doing a show about "knocking." See, I've been listening to all these songs all week about "knocking" &, well, as one might imagine, there are a WHOLE F-ING LOT OF THEM which are simply about the process of banging one's fist on a door, or moving the device on the door that makes a similar (though kinder to your fist) sound, to indicate that one is visiting someone else's home or place of business or building. So I was thinking, hey, maybe I should restrict the content of the show to that particular aspect of knocking & not the various other meanings, like being "knocked up," or the phrase "don't knock it." Neither of those alternative have nasty consequences, because, frankly, how can a bunch of songs on Self Help Radio be nasty?

Until I do a show about nastiness, that is.

I still haven't decided. But I know now it's not a dilemma. Just a sort of self-serving problem that I can wrestle with while drinking a little too much whiskey while listening to songs I've gather. Um. So. Never mind.

Preface To Knocking: There Are No Jokes About Knockers In This Blog Entry

I don't think I'll play any songs about "knockers" (if there are any) this week on the KNOCK show. I confess I haven't heard the term since I was a kid. Funnily enough, watching The Fall & Rise Of Reginald Perrin, a British sit-com from the 70s, last night, I did hear breasts referred to as "knockers." Crazy how these things happen.

The term "knockers" referring to breasts (some people say "women's breasts," but for the purposes of this discussion that seems redundant) is supposed to be fairly old though it became popular with army folk in the 40s. It was a "safe" euphemism for breasts for a while, coming into its own probably around the time of Laugh-In & dying out (more or less) by the beginning of the 80's. But no one really knows where it comes from.

One person on the www.phrases.org.uk message board added this: "A little site called LondonSlang.com asserts that the term orignates in London. It doesn't give any other explanation but it is listed along with the term 'knocking shop' for brothel. I'm not sure whether knocking shop is used here in the US, but it seems like it might be a clue to the phrase's origin." But I'm not at all convinced about that, though English speakers have used the word "knock" to mean "have sex," leading to a pregnant woman being "knocked up."

A "knocker" is properly one of two things: one who knocks, &/or a device on a door used to knock on it. Therefore one might imagine that calling a pair of breasts "knockers" would be related to this. On the same discussion list mentioned above, one shrewd poster pointed out that most doors only have a single knocker, so why would a pair of breasts be like a knocker? Someone suggested the motion of the knocker, but then the knocker isn't so much about its motion as it is about its sound, & most breasts I've had the experience to know are rather quiet. On the plus side, one correspondent pointed out that door knockers tend to be breast level - though I seem to remember them being more chin level - & I'm a fairly tall fellow.

I just don't know, & since the term is considered slang at best & vulgar at worst, most respectable etymologists won't bother with it. & the great Urban Dictionary doesn't care about word origins.

See? Not a single joke about knockers. Just information. That's the Self Help Radio way!

There Was An Accident This Weekend

Actually, several. All on Self Help Radio. Sucked into a musical maelstrom so you could live your weekend accident-free. Do listen. It'll make you safer.

Also, if you book your face on that face-the-book place, you can become a fan of Self Help Radio. I'll try to snazz the place up.

& May's Self Help Radio Extra? Ack, I'll work on it. Maybe have it by tomorrow. Promise!

Accident Waiting To Happen

This means two things:

1) The accident show is waiting to happen, & happen it will, accidentally on purpose tomorrow in the afternoon at selfhelpradio.net!

2) I resigned from my job today. I'll expand more later, not because you care, because I know you don't, but because it will affect Self Help Radio, which may have to take a few weeks off during the summer. More on that later.

Be careful, though - there'll be an accident tomorrow. But specifically on Self Help Radio. If it's not related to Self Help Radio, that accident is NOT MY FAULT!

The Darkness That Is Our 21st Century

There are apparently types of hugs between which teens differentiate. Word is that the youngsters hug all the time. Some people seem a little upset about it, mainly school administrators, who don't have enough to do while keeping an eye on all the teachers they don't let touch their students. Could it have come any sooner that someone would call it the lamest teen moral panic ever?

Remember when the choice was hugs or drugs (supposing, of course, the drug wasn't ecstasy, I guess)? Why are they upset now when it's obvious a lot of teens have made the choice they advocated (assuming, again, that it wasn't ecstasy they chose)? Or were the parents the only people who would get the hugs? Do you know how much better I would've turned out if I got physical affection from even my male friends in high school? My sweet lord.

Whither Accidents?

It's tempting to lie & say that the idea for this show is purely an accident. But it isn't. I've been wanting to collect songs about accidents because two of my favorite songs in the world are (ostensibly) about accidents.

"Accidents Will Happen" by Elvis Costello, & "Accident Waiting To Happen" by Billy Bragg.

Despite how utterly disappointing his career has been since around 1992 or 1993 (whenever Brutal Youth, his last great album, came out), Elvis Costello can still count me a trainspotting EC nerd. I recently put Imperial Bedroom on my iPod & listened to it all the way through on the way to work, probably the first time I've listened to the entire record in over a decade. "Accidents Will Happen" is the first song on Armed Forces, which many people feel is too polished & poppy, especially compared to the raw rocker This Year's Model, but, except for a couple of songs I don't care much for, the album has some of my favorite EC tunes. ("Two Little Hitlers," "Party Girl," "Moods For Moderns," well, okay, virtually everything except probably "Goon Squad" & the overplayed-as-"Alison" "Peace Love & Understanding" song.) But in addition to starting the record off with a song called "Accidents Will Happen," it's certainly no accident that EC began his album with a song that begins, "Oh, I just don't know where to begin..." Exquisite.

That would be enough of a reason to organize a show around something as silly as accidents, except...

Billy Bragg (whose artistic output took a more steep nosedive than EC's after the magnificent & near-perfect Workers' Playtime) (though, I should say, it didn't have as far to fall as EC's did) released the muddled & mostly-unlistenable Don't Try This At Home in 1991, & boy was I knocked out by the first track, which is "Accident Waiting To Happen." The rest of the record, not so much. Maybe it was just the album's title - I know he was just trying to be cute, but should the poster boy for DIY indie really have called his record DON'T Try This At Home? It's like he was deliberately gainsaying the Desperate Bicycles - & his own raison d'etre. But add in the obligatory early-90's REM appearance, add several generally not memorable songs, & it's an album that totally used up all its energy in the first track, & while I am fond of "Sexuality" because it's silly, I couldn't care less about the rest of the record.

I should note that one song that should have resonated with me is his cover of Fred Neil's "Dolphins," & if you read the Allmusic review of the record, it gives Billy Boy credit for the song, though it does correct it on other appearances. Bragg's rendition is fine, but after a tedious song called "God's Footballer," you would think someone whistling to themselves while bathing their cats was a joy.

But boy! is "Accident Waiting To Happen" a great song! & not just because I like the punning line, "You're a dedicated swallower of fascism." & this was in the days before Fox News! It sounds great, it's driving, you want to sing along.

The theme is accidents this week, but it's kind of on purpose. Didn't think I could resist making that joke did you? You don't know me at all.

Preface To Accidents: Addiction Is Deadly

I've become kind of addicted to the Netflix play-movie-in-the-browser function. It's made me watch too many movies (usually while I'm doing other stuff on the computer) that I would probably NEVER watch, even if they came on television. Is it because the movies are in the background in the same way that kids of today watch stuff constantly on their computers while they do homework, twitter, chat, download porn & music & pirate movies? I always thought I was too old for this. & I do do one thing they probably don't - when I am absorbed in an email or something else that's taking my time, I tend to "rewind" the movie to see the stuff I've missed. In any event, I feel dumb because I just watched two movies that I thought were all right but didn't really want to watch & I'm late writing in this blog.

I've probably started this because my new computer has a gorgeous screen & I like to use it. I'm going to start watching my favorite pretty movies on it before too long.

I have mentioned this before (& I mention it on my show when I read something from a column) but I am a big fan of the Word Detective. I just remembered a column he wrote a while back which, unfortunately, doesn't have anything to with Netflix Instant Play (or whatever it's called) addiction. In this column, about the origins of the word "crank," he talks about words like "dial" which we still use even though we don't really use phones with dials any more. He remarks that words like "crank" & "dial" are both in "a range of terms still in common usage even though the technologies that spawned them have profoundly changed, turning words whose logic once would have been obvious into linguistic fossils." But surely there's a better name for them than "linguistic fossils"! Let's come up with one.

I thought of that because I mentioned that I "rewind" the online movies, even though there's no tape involved. Funny, yes?

This Lonely Memorial Day...

...the wife is off in West Virginia looking for a place for us to hang our hats, & I've been tending to the lazy dogs & cats & listening to lots of stuff composing this month's Self Help Radio Extra in my head. As for the outside, what is the fucking weather? I don't know your zip code, but at mine, & I quote, "ITS FUCKING HOT." The site also adds, "I recommend staying away from fat people." Though I'm not sure why. They may have some food & refreshing beverages to share!

Speaking of sharing, you do know that the long weekend didn't pass without a new Self Help Radio, didn't you? Though I couldn't make it to the indiepop gathering in San Francisco this month, I did my part by continuing the never-ending Indiepop A To Zs. It's fun! & it's sponsored by Stinky!

& speaking of fat people, I'm going to go make myself something to eat. I hope the rest of your day goes swimmingly, provided it's not humidity you're swimming through. That would mean you were somewhere near here, where, as you know, it's quite hot. I read it on a website!

Escuse Me, Are Those Mine Pants?

For the fair of warning & the faint of heart I tell you, Self Help Radio is brand new this Memorandum Day weekend & you don't have to drive on America's unsafe highways to bask in its basket. Just click the link above when you think you know better & all will be chilled & served on a white wine platter, if the Americans still make such things, which I doubt.

One warning: the show this week is full of misspellings. I'm sorry about that. The spellcheck wasn't working this past week & I traded it in for a garage door opener that lambastes you like a psychic parrot. I could not refuse. Now if only I had an opener on which to put my garage.

One furtherance in the cause of righteousness: I or someone called Dick Dickenbock who I swear is not just me under an assumed name, but I assume the name under duress, will be hosting KVRX's "Artist Hour," which features smart-ass know-it-all dum-dums spotlighting an artist for an hour then forgetting about him/her/it/them until they drunk-call them on their wedding night & remind them of the sad little snowflakes they've become. But that's of no conceit as I or someone called etc., etc., will be featuring the great Rodd Keith. Tomorrow night from 10 to 11pm CST. Yes, an hour of song-poem brilliance. You can go out afterwards - the lite beer will still be there with the roofie, waiting for you to drink it up yum yum.

KVRX has been relocated due to a complicated fumigation, so I'm not sure if the station is streaming currently (or just streaming currents) but I will probably relocate the show from KVRX's temporary space to the SHR website in the fullest letter of the law in no uncertain terms. Just wash this space, & your face, & if you're an employee, you must wash your face-space after every other meal.

Have a good long weekend!

Two Links That Make Me Happy

What's the fucking weather?

Can I marry gay?

But maybe first you should ask, Must I marry gay?

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 20?

This is hardly the time to think about it, economically-wise, & maybe it's also a little insulting to the unemployed, but how DO you quit your job gracefully? I asked a panel of nine imaginary job-quitters, just to be on the safe side. Here's what they said, almost but not quite in the order in which they said it.

Number one said, "Get out before things get really, really bad!"
When is that, I asked.
"When there's no more coffee!" number one screamed, & quit the panel. (Not very gracefully, I might add.)

Number two said, "Tell the most powerful bot first, then adhere to the hierarchical rules that were programmed into you at construction."
(I should tell you, imaginary panelist number two is a robot who hails from a planet of sentient robots. Just FYI.)

Number three said, "Burn bridges!"
Really, I asked.
"I meant britches!" number three said. "Burn those britches! You'll never get the smell out! Never!"

Number four said, "If there's an exit interview, pretend it's an interview for a role on a reality television show."
I had no comment to that.

Number five said, "Don't write a resignation letter!"
No?
"No!" number five said. "Instead, just try to act resigned all the time."

Number six said, "Tell them you'll call every day. You're not really leaving. You're just visiting your mother in Duluth."
But won't they catch on?
"No," said number six. "Lookit. They were dumb enough to hire you in the first place, yeah?"

Number seven said, "Be sexy so you can get good reference books."
Reference books?
"Sure," said number seven, "you want your boss to give you good reference books when you leave."
Uh, I think you mean references.
"Are you sure?" asked number seven.
Um, maybe I meant referees?
"That's the spirit!" said number seven.

Number eight said, "Be an asshole about it to your co-workers, who can't quit because of their gambling debts & their chronic alcoholism. Also, act like the old-timers are really old. That'll teach 'em!"
Teach them what?
"That you're an asshole!" cackled number eight.

Number nine said, "Go, my child, into the wide world, knowing full well that those for whom you worked are no longer your masters & you are no longer their slave. Instead, you are no better than a hobo, eating your own filth & earning nothing, while they, they have hired someone almost exactly like you to replace you, & scarcely know you have gone."

Thanks guys!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 20: I Just Bought A New Computer!

Except for the weird, flat, purse-sized keyboard, it's pretty awesome.

I need to go move everything from the old computer to the new one. So I can't be horsing around with you right now. Maybe later?

Argyle In A Minute

Argyle is, of course, a magical place in Scotland where all kinds of colored diamonds are arranged as though on a checkerboard & live in peace & harmony. Not like those druggies in Paisley. Stupid Paisleyites!

I recently had a chance to take drugs with a fellow from Paisley &, in my stupor, I was able to tour imaginary Argyle in the minute it took for the effects to wear off from what I now know wasn't a hallucinogen but was, instead, instant coffee cut with confidence & elan. Still, I think, as I noticed in my hazy dream-like state that the town were all big fans of Self Help Radio, I'll tell you about some of the sites I saw should you, too, find yourself there under no uncertain circumstances.

If you're in the uptown/midtown area, visit Sam's Irish Coffee shop, & ask for tea. He'll have a laugh, accuse you of being Protestant, & throw you out. Sam's Irish Coffee shop is a Scottish institution, being funded by several governments & Shane McGowan, formerly of the Pogues. He's always there, making his teeth say awful things to you.

If you're in the midtown/uptown area near the stables, visit The Bookdrop, an actual library bookdrop which doesn't work properly, so you can simply reach in & browse through a fascinating collection of books people have recently returned. Warning: taking books from The Bookdrop may be stealing.

If you're in the midtown/midtown area, be sure to see the shifting ideas at the nearby Firth. It may not be the first Firth you've even seen (it was more fourth Firth), but it will be funnest. Little indiepop kids with too many scarves on pretend to ride skateboards & write earnest poetry on benches all around. You may even see Stuart Murdoch & still no one will believe you.

If you're uptown with some downtown urges, there are always lovely women waiting for the buses that never come in their minds. They are robust lasses, some with mighty handshakes, others with handy milkshakes, & still others with dentist appointments that you swear to god they'll never keep. You may only be in Argyle for a minute, but a few seconds on grinning wench is never wasted, unless she's grinning because rigor mortis has set in. Then dial 911 & hope William Petersen is working that week. & not, as luck would have it, Flavor Flav.

This wonderful travel tip was brought to you by last week's Self Help Radio, which used Scottish concrete in at least one of the songs it played during the show. Be a sport & have a listen. You'll never be able to snort all that instant coffee in one go anyway!

Getting Back On Your Feed

I had this strange memory last night before I fell asleep - it seemed to come out of nowhere. My family lived in these apartments from the time I was in fifth to probably ninth grade, & the apartments were called "Villa Cordoba." (We pronounced it vil-la of course, not vee-ya, because we were dumb white kids.) It was squarely shaped, with doors opening, on the street at the front of the complex, to the street, & the other three sides to the parking lot that surrounded it like a moat. Little patios with stucco walls looked into the complex's center, which had a few apartments, a laundry room, the manager's office, & a pool that was generally never cleaned so was always full of green, green water. At the center of each of the complex's walls was a breezeway, with studio apartments above them (the rest of the apartments were two-story).

My thought - which wasn't quite a dream, because I wasn't asleep yet - was about the breezeway at the back of the apartments, which looked out over a parking lot, of course, & a white fence which separated the complex from the rest of the world, & then a giant Lutheran church with giant lush lawns where we played football & baseball when we were sure worshippers weren't around (you know, when their parking lot wasn't full of cars).

The front breezeway looked into the space where the manager's office was. The two side breezeways looked into the pool area. But the back breezeway, which always seemed very dark to me (maybe because it faced east & was protected from the sun by the church shadow), just looked at a wall. If you didn't know there was a path on which you could go left or right into the complex, you might think it was a dead end.

Why I thought about this place I don't know. I did a show about breezes last week or so, & talked a little about breezeways, & definitely thought of those breezeways of my youth, but it doesn't explain why this memory would appear & haunt me now. Because it did haunt me - I wanted to go to sleep, but my brain was now on fire, trying to remember details like: there was a door, wasn't there, some sort of custodial or storage door, in the south wall, a door I'm sure I tried to open whenever I walked by. Also, my brain wanted to remember if the breezeway smelled - if it were dirtier than the others, since it was darker - or if it were usually clean or cluttered with leaves, cigarette butts, trash.

It was a strange sensation - an irrelevant, uncalled memory suddenly at the forefront of all my thoughts - & me in a vulnerable place, where I had to make an almost physical effort to remove it from my mind, to think about whatever other dumb stuff - dumb, perhaps, but more relevant - I think about before I fall asleep.

I said it haunted me, & obviously it did. I just spent some moments looking through old short stories I used to write before I realized I wasn't very good at it, to see if I described it better back then, when it was certainly closer in time & not subject to all the intervening years & their onerous memories. But alas, no! I am still haunted.

Did I mentioned a new Self Help Radio tomorrow? Look for it in the afternoon.

Old Joke Found In An Old Email

Busy listening to concrete songs today so I have nothing really of value to say. Actually, I am apparently writing in rhyme but you don't care, I do it all the time. & possibly you think I'm awful square for pointing this out to you right then & there. No no no, don't call a cop, I promise, I promise, I'll stop, I'll stop.

No, man, it doesn't scan. If I had time to write a real letter, I'll bet you that all my rhymes would be better. & though it's really some dude's lame journal, you must now notice some rhymes are internal.

Ack! Alack!

I was looking for an email to reproduce for my whaddayacallit "Email Archive Blah Blah" & found an old joke sent to me on September 26, 1996, which made me laugh a full twelve years later. So I excise it from the entire email & share it with you:

Q: Why shouldn't you piss off a Unitarian?
A: Because they'll burn a question mark in your lawn.

Ha ha!

Whither Concrete?

A fairer question 'twas never ask'd. For this season, therefore do I placate my modest brow with an ode (like the oddest odists do) to that most hardened of versatile materials, viz. concrete, from the Latin concretus, which (every schoolchild ought know) means "hardened" or "hard" or "hardcore."

Consider this thy then, mine "Ode On Concrete." Written in 1821.

Concrete, concrete, have you any wool?
Nay sir, nay sir, I am instead a construction material composed of cement & sometimes other cement-like materials such as fly ash & slag cement, aggregate, gravel, limestone, granite (these three often mixed with sand), water, and chemicals.
But concrete! Why does thou deny me my rhyme?
For ought not odes rhyme, all the ode-ly time?
Nay sir, nay sir, I'm just a plain material one might find on your highway or sidewalk or sometimes around bunkers in freaky movies where a serial killer lines his murder room with concrete because of the creepy way fluorescent light just kind of hangs on concrete walls like egg whites slowly dripping down, down, down, causing immense despair in the poor victim, shackled & dead by the morning she or he cannot see in the hollow timelessness of the concrete prison.
Uh, okay concrete. Whatever. Just wanted to write an ode here, not speculate on what you daydream about when you're being mixed in one of those trucks.

So, no ode. I was all totally odic, too. If that's a word.