The Best Phone Calls

Any person who's spent more than four hours on the radio - especially if those four hours are at night - will tell you that you get some interesting phone calls when you do a radio show. I can only speak as someone who's done non-commercial radio - I'm certain that there are screeners for commercial radio call-in shows who have great stories to tell, too - but the types of listener feedback one gets ranges from the sweet to the scary.

I will share one that happened this week during Sugar Substitute. If you've heard my shows - & I wouldn't expect you to have, especially if you like good radio - you may note that I do take requests. I like phone calls. I like to know someone's listening. So Tuesday morning - this would have been very early, before 4am, I get a call. It goes something like this:

"Hey, I'm sitting here trying to make love to my lady & she wants to hear something by the Magnetic Fields."

I ask if it's anything specific - mainly because I really don't think of the Magnetic Fields as "sexy." "Sad" & "romantic" do come to mind...

"I know," he says, "some of their songs are sarcastic but if there's anything you can play that will help my seal the deal..."

I promise to do what I can. I have the first disc of "69 Love Songs" & am thinking about playing something sad but lovely like "All My Little Words" when the title of the ninth track just leapt out at me. So, when I could, which was about two songs later, I played "Let's Pretend We're Bunny Rabbits."

He didn't call back. I assumed it did the trick.

Eep! New Show!

Yes, this week's episode of Self Help Radio (as well as this week's episode of Sugar Substitute) are now available for listening at self help radio dot net. Consult your local augurs for ramifications. & be good to yourself!

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 29?

This is in no wise a complaint, but I am now involved with a radio station which (rightly) reports its charts to chart-compiling authorities, but that means that, for the pleasure of doing Self Help Radio with impunity (ie, ninety minutes without requirements) I do have to fulfill the station's "playbox" directives whilst doing Sugar Substitute. This is sort of a bummer, because the previous radio station with which I was involved - well, their focus was not on music at all, & their music department was in disarray, not having had a real music director in almost a year. (&, well, the one they got was more interested in sports anyway) - so I could easily play whatever I wanted & that meant this:

When I did the Indiepop A To Z, I could "spill over" into Sugar Substitute so I tore through the list faster. But, alas! No more!

Yes, I will have to slow to a crawl again, for Sugar Substitute (which is of course new tomorrow) must needs also prominently feature new WRFL playbox material as well as my own pop choices, & there'll just be ninety minutes of Indiepop A To Z tomorrow. We're still in the Fs, but we are making a dent.

Listen! Tomorrow morning! 88.1 fm! Very early! Sugar Substitute at 3am! Self Help Radio at 4:30am! Online at wrfl.fm! Archived sometime later at selfhelpradio.net!

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 29: Did I Just Plan This Because I Was On Vacation?

Maybe. But it wasn't really a vacation. I was visiting the family.

But it's true, since the "indiepop a to z" process is simply creating an alphabetical list & following it, it's not really as challenging as, you know, coming up with a theme like "serial killer sonatas" - & then having to find an ample amount of songs that cover the theme.

No, I'm not doing a show about "serial killer sonatas." There's no such thing.

I did daydream on the plane about two things. One is that I might find myself living, in a few years, on a planet without frogs & bees. That describes every other planet in our solar system, but it's a little disturbing for this particular planet.

Also, I have lately wanted to write two particular novels. ("Wanted" is a strong word.) One is a sci-fi novel about people living inside human brains. The other is a fictionalized version of some somewhat exciting stuff that happened at a radio station I used to be involved with. It occurred to me while I was trying to fall asleep on the plane ride home that I could combine the two. Beings in brains sabotaging a non-commercial radio station's pledge drive?! Now that would be gripping reading!

I actually finished a novel (reading) on the plane, Lorrie Moore's new book. It was (as expected) rather sad & amazingly funny & I wish I had more of it to read. Did I ever tell you, I wanted (a long time ago, after I read her book "Anagrams") to write her a gushy fanboy email but couldn't find an address for her online? It turns out that she teaches somewhere - the University of Wisconsin at Madison I think - & all I discovered was an office phone. So I waited until the middle of one afternoon & called her up. When a woman answered, I just quickly said "I love you!" & hung up.

The last part of that isn't true. I never called her. Long ago I stopped wanting to chat with people I admired. Somehow they're uncomfortable with my wide-eyed love of their work. They expect me to be cool or something. Like regular people do.

I've missed talking to you! Okay, I'm back now. What were we going on about?

A Morning's Worth Of Mambo

There were ninety minutes of mambo madness this morning on Self Help Radio. Did you miss it? Don't worry! The show in its tireless entirety is now available for your listening pleasure - hip injuries notwithstanding - at self help radio dot net. If you're just feeling poppy, there's also a new episode of Sugar Substitute. So much goodness, such an old-school website.

I will be visiting family in Dallas for the rest of the week so you won't hear hide nor hair from me until Sunday at the earliest. That means this week's Dickenbock Electronics has been delayed for a week, so it'll happen next weekend. Self Help Radio will be on next Tuesday though, so don't fret. Just have a wonderful week!

Whither Mambo?

4:30 in the morning may seems an inappropriate time to discuss a dance & musical style that was popular over sixty years ago. You are wise to suggest that. I have however become painfully aware of certain (shall we call them) rogue elements in our fair city who are determined - nay, resolved - to not march to the beat of the same civic & cultural drum we ourselves use to keep time. I've heard of early morning screenings of late-night talk shows; of impromptu Jazzercise sessions; of kids taken to school in the early evening & made to endure home room at dinner time; & of course, mambo.

They mambo whenever inconvenient: in the line at the jewelry store; in the corner of your eye when you're enjoying too much Chinese food at a buffet; on national television during the news or any car commercial after ten p.m.; with friendly police officers who don't know any better; on a Thursday night in the privacy of their own backyards.

You see, 4:30 am may be the only time to expose these anarchists, these agents of chaos, these exceedingly silly folk.

& I shall. Tune in to Self Help Radio tomorrow morning at 4:30 am on 88.1 fm WRFL. You can listen online. You can also enjoy the show later that day on self help radio dot net.

It will be part exposé, part cultural commentary. But a lot of it will just be mambo.

Preface To Mambo: Can YOU Mambo?

I can't. In fact, at this late date, mere days before I do a radio show about the mambo, I still am not quite sure what a mambo is. There just seemed to be, you know, so many songs about mambos - or songs that were mambos - out there. I figured I'd catch on at some point.

I haven't done any research yet - really, I don't do much research at all, but even so - so I wonder if the "mambo" as a dance is related to the "mamba" as a snake. Or if the two of them have a similar origin.

Can you imagine this fellow dancing to Latin rhythms?



(I can!)

Zeke Three

Ayep, the Zeke Moonshine Show's Third Episode is now available for your down-home listening pleasure over at selfhelpradio dot net. It features the finest in country & blues & country blues & even some sanctified music. It also features a poorly-disguised "Gary" as "Zeke Moonshine" talking in the worst Southern accent you've ever heard. Really, it'd be terrible if the music weren't so fine. Have a listen. Who's it gonna hurt? At selfhelpradio dot net. Now. Saddle up!

Stumpy

I just sent, in an email to a friend, this line:

> Actually, I tried to take her [my basically feral cat Beatrice] but instead lost
> the pinky on my left hand. Now people can call me "stumpy" for something
> other than my small, misshapen penis!

What does it say about me that I would share such a thing?

Except that I think it's a pretty funny joke?

Off... In The Distance... A Radio Show!

In the distance you see the new episode of Self Help Radio. You'll want to keep your distance. Surely it cannot possibly go the distance. Yet as your distance yourself, you think perhaps you could handle a long distance relationship with the show. Although those never work. & now, with a distant look in your eyes, you stare off into the middle distance, wondering why the show & you seem so distant from one another...

Though it feels like it happened in the distant past, this morning's episode of Self Help Radio - which, despite what you heard, wasn't a tribute to crinkly things, but rather about distance - just happened. & you may have been too far away (or too aloof) to listen to it live, but you can hear it now at selfhelpradio.net. It's waiting there for you, no matter what distances you must travel to get to it.

There's also a new episode of Sugar Substitute, but it's not as pretentious as that other show.

Whither Distance?

Right now I am around 860 miles away from the place where I was born. I am about one thousand & seventy miles away from the city where I spent more than half my life - & where I've spent most of my adult life. & I am (gratefully) about 130 miles from the horrible little town in which I spent the past year.

In this hemisphere, I've never been farther north than Boston, nor farther south than Mexico city. Boston is nearly two thousand miles from where I lived at the time, & Mexico City is 750 miles from the same place.

The farthest west I've gone is San Francisco, & the farthest in the other direction is Frankfurt, Germany. Right now the love of my life is very far away from me, in Kyoto, Japan, although I can chat with her on Skype & she sounds clearer than when she's yelling at me in the next room.

How far away are you from me? One of the nice things about WRFL is that you can listen anywhere (as long as you have access to a computer). So if you're awake at whatever time it is where you are, you can listen to Self Help Radio tomorrow, it's on at 4:30 am my time.

& one day, the radio waves that WRFL is sending out may travel vast distances in space & landing on alien ears - or however they are able to interpret the noise we're making.

Preface To Distance: You're So Far Away

Hey. You. Can you hear me? No? You're so far away.

I said YOU'RE SO FAR AWAY!

As I've gotten older, my voice - which admittedly got deeper - also got quieter. I don't really like to shout or yell. But I was a loud kid.

I said I'M NOT TALKING TO YOU! I'M TALKING TO MY BLOG.

I wonder why you're so far away anyway. It seems like a bad idea. Distance, distance seems so pervasive in this universe that it doesn't make any sense why people try to get so far away from one another.

Or maybe it does. For the same reasons.

I said I'M JUST TALKING TO MYSELF. IF YOU WANT TO TALK, COME OVER HERE!

Do you know, I moved from a dying little hamlet to an actual town? It is a town full of hospitals & churches & (perhaps as a result of the first two) sirens. There are sirens all the time. I have yet to witness an accident of any kind, but I hear sirens all the time. Do you know what's going on?

I said DO YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON? WAS IT AN AMBULANCE OR A FIRE ENGINE?

Oh for Pete's sake.

I used to have a dream - a nightmare really - when I was a kid & more attached to my mother - that involved me getting separated from my mother - usually on some kind of island or a cliff - where she would be on the other side - & we'd be getting farther & farther apart - it was the distance that would be so terrifying. Later on, after I kind of realized my mother was full of shit, & didn't need her any more, the dream would be just me, all alone, being aware of the vastness of everything, & I'd be separate from it all, & it would seem almost exponential the way the distance would increase. Leaving me more & more alone.

I had a similar version of that dream just the other day, but it was more about time, & it was my brain taunting me about trying to get to sleep.

I said I HAD A SIMILAR oh. You're right here now!

What? More Jazz?

Yes, it's Saturday again, so it's time for another of my rotating Saturday shows. There are only three, of course, but wouldn't it be awesome if I had a giant Price-Is-Right-ish wheel I spun on Saturday morning that had a dozen different genres & I had to make a radio show that day using only that genre? That would be fun! I shouldn't even think about it.

No, today is my jazz show, now in its third episode, it's called "Tags & Tricks," & today features mostly modern stuff from the likes of Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, & more. You can listen to it at selfhelpradio.net. It might make you hipper.

Okay, it won't make you hipper.

I shouldn't say such things.

Fire Blimp!

He let himself get depressed only when he had had one too many. That was the point of no return. Or maybe, let's say, it was the point of the farthest the boomerang would go until it came back. It went too far. That was the point. At the edge of its limits, where it might actually be free, then, then, it could be honest.

He knew he'd return to her despite the honesty of the drink. He had taken college psychology, he paid attention, he knew which of his feelings were bullshit & which were real. He also knew he had had some kind of dumbass economical attitude about his relationship, which was, "I have invested this much, it would be ridiculous to squander such an investment with fill-in-the-blank." His equation, of course, was never divided by the circumstance, which was: "I am unhappy all the time."

At what point might she cross the line, do something so incredibly perverse & selfish to make him fall, like a broken boomerang, where it was thrown? He thought about that often. He actually daydreamed about it. He wondered if she were even that calculating, or if her own innate selfishness would eventually reach that event horizon.

It would free him. It would make the decision for him.

Or would it?

Drag Yourself To Self Help Radio

The show about dragging - including being in drag, taking drags from all sorts of smokeable items, & drag racing on the main drag - was not only a drag, but may drag you down with it. If you find yourself curious or you're feeling otherwise reckless, you can listen to the show at selfhelpradio.net. You don't need to cast a dragnet over the area to find it. It has done no wrong. It will come if you want it.

There's also a new episode of Sugar Substitute, which is not any less of a drag, although there's a lot of birthday wishes to Buddy Holly. Just so you know.

Whither Drag?

Because drag has a ton of meanings! It can mean at least seven different things. (At last count.) & each of the things it means, altogether, weigh two thousand pounds. Really! It can be a verb or a noun or even a part of speech that hasn't maybe been invented yet. The possibilities are endless. Or the possibilities can take ninety minutes. Whichever comes first. Or goes last. Or goes to last, coming in first. That's how remarkable that word is.

My cat thinks I don't know that he sleeps on my desk in front of my computer when I'm not home but I know he does because he leaves hair everywhere. He thinks he's so smart. Now I have tiny black cat hairs on my keyboard. & since I like to lick my fingers when I type, now they're all over my mouth, too.

I know, the show is happening soon! Like, later tonight soon! I don't go to sleep on Mondays because I don't think I'd wake up on Tuesday mornings in time for the show. That's kind of a drag. But the show isn't. Except, you know, this week.

So listen tomorrow morning for Sugar Substitute at 3am & Self Help Radio yawning at 4:30 am! You can listen on the air in Lexington at 88.1 fm or you can listen online at wrfl.fm. I edit out all the embarrassing parts (like when I say "booger") when I put the show up at selfhelpradio.net, so listening live is the only way to know what really happened.

Must I always have to drag you to my radio shows? Arggh!

Preface To Drag: How Do We Know You Don't Always Do Your Shows In Ladies' Clothes?

Short answer: you can't. Though I might sound weird if I'm wearing a miniskirt. Or crinkle more if I am wearing something fancy.

I've actually been in drag before. I played Lady Macbeth in a video for my twelfth grade class. I played her as if she were a Southern Belle. I refused to wear a bra. My sister wanted to let me borrow one of her bras, but I couldn't do it, couldn't wear one of her bras. I did wear one of her ugly dresses, though.

I don't know if I've dressed as a woman since then, although one summer when I was home from college, I was bored & I put on a lot of my sister's make-up. Interestingly, my father - who was of course then alive - came over & saw me all made-up, playing my nephew's video games. I'm sure it just confirmed his opinion that I was one queer kid, but I was actually embarrassed. I wouldn't have been embarrassed with anyone else, I don't believe.

Drag has more meaning than that one, you know.

More Information About Robots & Electronic Music

Robots are not afraid of words unless they have been programmed to be. Robots do not use things such as band-aids or bandages. Robots are often defined by their differences to humans. Robots can become quite vain.

I had a lovely brunch today & then made today's episode of Dickenbock Electronics, which features new music from Ital Tek, ISAN, Solvent, & more. It was a very nice show & the robots now all love me. Don't you want the robots to love you? Is that too much to ask?

Please enjoy the show at selfhelpradio.net. The robots who hang out there won't hassle you if you say you're there for the music. Just don't mention if you have any integrated circuits on you. You have been warned.

Cartoon Of Movies Of Movie Cartoonists

Sometimes I write things that don't make any sense. Okay, I always write things that don't make any sense. But some of these things seem to begin with purpose, then peter out. For example, this, below. I don't know what I was intending & it's not exactly a parody or satire. Maybe I wrote it with sympathy for the unheralded writers & artists of Disney. Who know? It certainly falls apart soon enough.

-----

Scene: Hollywood, California. A bungalow on a movie lot. Time: then. Date: now.

A thick pile of night-black cat hair rises up to talk. It's Frisky Feline, star of stage & screen!

Frisky Feline introduces the short documentary film. He's smoking a cigarette on a long diamond-encrusted holder, to signify the wealth he's made in the movies. It's a stark contrast to the terrible working conditions the cartoonists who created him had to slave in!

Scene switches to: a sweatshop in Santa Barbara. Cigar smoke fills the air.

Rows & rows of middle-aged white men in their shirtsleeves lean over their drawing boards, allowed only a pipe or a cigar to calm their grumbling guts. Standing over them, wearing a double-breasted suit, is the Overseer. He wields the pen that signs the checks. He has a giggling blonde tattooed on each arm - but these poor cartoonists will never see.

Scene switches to: wealthy voice-over artists on their palatial estates in the Hollywood hills, getting foreign massages & other bizarre treatments while explaining how they rewrote scripts to suit their talents.

-----

Just to let you know. I have scraps of things like this everywhere. I think people who really write - songs, poems, stories, etc. - save their scraps & find ways to use their ideas in other ways. I just save them. Then I look at them occasionally & go "What the fuck?"

Revenge Of The Obscure Radio Show!

Actually, that should say, "Revenge, this week's theme on that obscure radio show." The obscure radio show is of course Self Help Radio, which you've never heard of & why should you? It's really not that good.

However, if you have some time to kill & you'd like to hear lots of songs about revenge, this radio show would fit your bill. You can listen to it & other eminently time-wasting shows at selfhelpradio.net. It's all very normal.

As normal as revenge.

Whither Revenge?

It's funny you should ask that. I was having a conversation with someone tonight - let's just say it was my mother, since she's 82 & more or less inoffensive - & she was talking about a friend with whom she's estranged & the desperate need she seems to feel to do something to "pay them back" for a perceived wrong. This wrong, it turns out, is simply disagreeing with her. My mother (hypothetically) can't abide the fact that this friend disagrees with her on how she (my mother, but not really) feels her friend should be living her life.

How would this revenge she desires take place? A sarcastic card seemed to be the weapon of choice. I asked my mother (it wasn't really my mother), "Do you want to stay friends with this person?" She said, yes. But she was angry at her. I said, "Do you think this card you would send with mean stuff written in it would make her realize that you were right & she was wrong, or do you think it would make her not want to speak to you ever again." My mother (who is not the person I am really talking about, I swear) said she thought it would continue the feud. "I guess I'd rather be her friend than hurt her," she said.

I'll bet you she sends the mean card anyway. People are like that.

Oh, & yes, Self Help Radio is on very early Tuesday morning at 4:30 am. You won't be up for it, this I know, & I don't expect you to be, though you can of course hear it live on the 88.1 fm frequency in all of Lexington as well as online at wrfl.fm if you are. If you're like me & I certainly hope you're not that unfortunate, you will wait to hear it some time on Tuesday at selfhelpradio.net. You can download it in secrecy & if anyone asks, just tell them it's porn. That's not as embarrassing.

Preface To Revenge: Why Do You Do Me Wrong?

Revenge is a dish best served over easy.

Seriously, after a day like this, that's all I've got.

Plus, the wife never fills the water bowl. We've got like six animals & I'm always finding the water bowl empty. That's kinda cruel, don't you think? Maybe not Michael Vick cruel, but still. She's not going to win any awards.

Is this mic on? What? Where am I? What have I done?

One ought to be more magnanimous, that's all I meant. You know?

Zeke Heads 'Em Off At The Pass

Yessirree rattler, that fictional so-&-so Zeke Moonshine came in outta the prairie today to rustle up some fine ol' country & blues tunes for the second installment of his immodestly-titled series "The Zeke Moonshine Show." He wants you to know that no buffalo were harmed in the recording of this show. He also thinks it may be more sanitary if we provide him with a spittoon during his sessions.

You can listen to his musical adventures at selfhelpradio.net. Before he & his faithful steed Camouflage went off into the sunset, he promised to be back some day, & that then - & only then - would he pay us back what he owes us.

One of our engineers woke up & said, "Who was that backwards-masked man?"

Cats With Asthma & Other Rhyming Memes

She said something not-nice to the flamingo. The flamingo did not hear her.

She decided to try a different approach. The flamingo appeared to be ignoring her.

She wanted to make more noise. But there was a dozen dozing wasps in the nearby trees.

She knew a couple of the wasps, socially. The others might be more disagreeable.

She did however need to mildly insult the flamingo. After all it had said about her.

She had heard from a farmer that the flamingo gossiped about her. It wasn't the first time she had heard this.

She hadn't expected the flamingo to be hard-of-hearing. Nor meaner than a box of hot nails.

She knew she should never become friends with a flamingo. The wasps she knew, for example, had warned her.

She had thought of an excellent put-down with which to insult the flamingo. But the flamingo did not hear her.

She decided to say it louder. This time the flamingo heard her.

She expected the flamingo to lose its temper. But it just said, "Same to you."

She accepted the impasse. Over in the nearby trees, some wasps snickered.

It Was A Pleasure Then

Well, it was. Although I didn't play that song. Which I wanted to, but it's eight minutes long. So I chose to play long Roxy Music & Phil Ochs songs instead.

Yes, Self Help Radio's first "normal" slot of the fall was a pleasurable show all about pleasure. I pleasured myself during the entire show. Wait. Did I really say that?

You can listen to the show at selfhelpradio.net. It is my pleasure to offer such pleasure to you.

Thanks for listening!

Whither Pleasure?

It is a PLEASURE to do radio.

It is a PLEASURE to be on WRFL.

It is a PLEASURE to be able to do as ridiculous show as Self Help Radio.

It is a PLEASURE to be on the air every Tuesday morning from 3 to 6am!

It is a PLEASURE to split that time between Sugar Substitute & Self Help Radio!

It is a PLEASURE to know you're listening. If you're listening. Won't you listen?

Preface To Pleasure: Early Morning Beginnings

As you well know, I am beginning anew at a new radio station, the wonderful WRFL, which is at 88.1 on the fm dial in Lexington. Since I am beginning anew, I urged the powers-that-be (who happens to be a very nice fellow named Matt) to treat me no different from any of the newcomers to the station. He obliged.

So Self Help Radio will have to air sometime during my first official timeslot on WRFL: 3 - 6 am. AM. Ante meridian. In the morning!

I have of course done early morning shows before. I started at KVRX at 5 to 7am, & subbed many early morning slots. During breaks between school, I often did large blocks - midnight to nine am, for example - & loved almost every minute of it. The big issue here isn't the time - I'm happy to do radio even when no one is listening - but when to put Self Help Radio?

Self Help Radio from 3 to 4:30 am would start off the block like I normally do. But surely more people would be listening as they wake from 4:30 to 6 am? Certainly! Okay then!

Because I am a new deejay I am required to fulfill certain charting obligations of the station, so I'll do Sugar Substitute (which is a pop show) from 3 to 4:30 & then Self Help Radio from 4:30 to 6. I know it's early - even in different time zones - so of course I'll understand if you can wake to listen to it live. I'll still archive the shows on selfhelpradio.net. You're off the hook.

& thanks for listening to me work this through in my head.

Um, Zeke?

Well, don't that beat all. I ain't heard nothin' from Zeke Moonshine all week long. I'm a-guessin' he ain't gone deliver his show what he promised to deliver this week. Dad burn the sidewinder! It almost makes me wanna throw away my whiskey!

Actually, it's not Zeke's fault, it's mine. Zeke is, after all, fictional. I am also but perhaps less so. I've been subbing shows at WRFL all week & just didn't have the time to commit to doing Zeke's show. I'll do it next Saturday, I promise.

I will be subbing another WRFL show (which you can listen to online) tomorrow night (Sunday) from 8 to 10, just playing tune & having fun. & Self Help Radio's season starts Tuesday!

Doing lots of radio makes me happy but sleepy.

I Have To Get To Bed...

It's been a long week. & it's not over yet.

But you can hear last night's episode of Self Help Radio (all about beds) at selfhelpradio.net. Best if listened to in... Well, you know.

It's That Time Tonight Again!

Yes, Self Help Radio - with this week's theme being "beds" - airs at midnight tonight (Lexington time) on the wonderful WRFL 88.1 fm. It may be the last time I'm on at that time - or at all for the semester, as the new schedule starts on Monday & I am not sure if Self Help Radio has a place on it.

Do listen! Do call!

(Or if you can't, you know, the show'll be on selfhelpradio.net. No worries.)

Whither Beds?

Truly what is central to every home you have is a bed. It's time, you say, to lie down. What is more natural than a bed? Nor comfy?

Each & every scientists know that beds are absolutely central to the room in which they reside, which you would call a bed-room. Could you keep couch or love seat therein? Perhaps a futon. "Futon" is another language for "bed."

Never never order a bed out of a box nor catalog! Always always to the store to perhaps lie upon nor be supine on proper bed showcase room. Bring ones or ones which you would always share bed, if handy. Testable!

Would you as a human being (no offense) imagine there are lots of songs about bed? You would be corrected! What is more natural & central to your private music collection than a song about beds? Everyone knows the words!

Perhaps you relax on a bed right now. Who shall stop you if you? Just please do not tear the mattress. There are penalties as far as Interpol or whatever the United Nations is now called.

Let's not let the future legislate the beds of tomorrow! Your own blankets are your own, you must not share. You know what is central to your pillows is your head firmly nor gently placed there upon it. It is all right to sleep.

Truly there are beds & their songs are ones you may even hear in the night as you want to sleep!

Preface To Beds: Queen Sized Or King Sized?

The bed I brought to Austin with me was basically a kind of army cot, with a thin foam mattress, on a green metal frame. I don't remember if I made the bed every morning before I went to class. Probably. I was pretending to be grown up.

The bed I had in my post-college days was a decent-sized mattress I kept on the floor. I pretty much only gave that up once I started shacking up with the woman I would marry. Although I do believe I did have a box spring under the mattress. I used to keep that bed in my living room, & used the bedroom for storage.

Here's a list of all the types of bed sizes possible (I suppose): Twin, Single, Double, Full, Queen, King, California King, Western King, Eastern King. California King? Why not just call it the Schwartzenegger?

The woman I married takes beds very, very seriously. I don't think I would mind, even in my advanced years, sleeping on a mattress on the floor. For one thing, it removes a potential hiding place for cats. Cats love to hide. They love to hide under beds. I know, it's cruel, to not give cats their hiding places, but I have spent precious hours looking for cats who spitefully did not want to be found. Sometimes, you know, to give them medicine.

I didn't ask how much the current bed I sleep in costs. I didn't pay for it. I also don't know what size it is. It's big enough to comfortably sleep two humans, three dogs, & three cats. If they don't hog the bed. Which they do. & who gets to sleep on a small sliver of bed, nearly falling off, at the edge? You guessed it.

That wouldn't happen with a mattress on the floor!

Estimated Salesperson

Once upon a shopping mall, somewhere between superstore & broken-down pool hall, the estimated salesperson tallies what you have in your basket to make sure commerce takes place. The classic rock plays not quietly enough until cliched guitar riffs poke your unfeeling brain like acupuncture needles. What would the estimated salesperson do if your eyes started bleeding? Would she then accept your expired coupons?

You were daydreaming in the cereal aisle about bands that you liked getting back together to re-record their best records. It made you think of a date with an ex who had quit drinking in the seven years since you'd last dated. Or maybe the ex had started drinking. In any event, it wasn't the same. You wonder if the estimated salesperson has someone to love. Or if she's as empty as this supermarket is, in an evacuated shopping mall, at three o'clock in the afternoon.

The estimated salesperson is unimpressed that you brought your own bags, & seems to believe that means you have to fill them yourself. At higher-end stores they give your discounts, or donate something to charity. All for the possible petroleum you have saved. You think of a small patch of sky, somewhere over one of the great polluted oceans, air no human being will ever breathe, to which you gave a small reprieve today. You feel a little like the last bright cloud in the sky before sundown. Until the estimated salesperson wants you to pay.

The estimated salesperson looks unfriendly even when she's trying to look friendly. This, you understand, is a definition of unhappiness.

If It Scratches, Itch It!

Hello last night's Self Help Radio all about itching & scratching is online if you missed it on air it's now on the web site selfhelpradio.net it also contains a new episode of Sugar Substitute which also was on the air hey it was the first Self Help Radio on WRFL that's pretty cool don't you think all right then go listen already hooray!

The Wait Is Over!

That's right, Self Help Radio returns after two weeks & a day (wouldn't it have been easier to say "fifteen days"?) (hey, at least I didn't say "a fortnight & a day"!) (yeah, we know you were thinking that) & makes its premiere on 88.1 fm WRFL Lexington tonight at midnight!

What? You don't live here & can't hear it live? Nonsense! Just listen online at wrfl.fm! You can listen live & even call me (859.257.9735) (that's 859.257.WRFL) to freak me out.

What? You're not up even if it's earlier the farther west you go? Oh, well. I tried. The show will be put online at the Self Help Radio website as soon as I wake up tomorrow. Or as soon as they let me out of the drunk tank. Whatever comes first.

I'm excited. I need to go to the bathroom now.

Whither Itching & Scratching?

Oops, I just noticed that the Self Help Radio website lists the "itchy scratchy" show as today, August 10, instead of tomorrow, August 11, probably because I left the website in a box & forgot to unpack it. Wouldn't it be confused to learn that the show actually is August 12, since it's at midnight, but I'm not going to play that game with arbitrary definitions of time. It's bad enough that my show has to be in a "timeslot" when it's on the radio - but, enough. I've corrected it now so you can't be all like, "Where was Self Help Radio today?" Not anymore.

I also want to correct the misapprehension that folks at the Literal Club have somehow come upon that Self Help Radio's show this week is in support of or otherwise a proponent of itching &/or scratching. This canard has been & may still be being spread by folks at the Itches Institute who believe it is their sole solemn sworn duty to actively & aggressively promote itching & scratching in our already uncomfortable world. It seems ridiculous to say it over & over, but Self Help Radio critically examines its themes in as objective a way as possible, hardly ever taking sides except perhaps with good music & awkward, uncomfortable airbreaks. Please stop spreading this scuttlebutt or I'll show you how an émigré Texan scuttles butt, if you know what I mean & I think you do.

It means I'll be forced to resort to fisticuffs.

Also, this is a BLOG, this is not TWITTER, so whoever keeps telling me I'm going over 140 characters, please make note of the social network onto which you've logged. Much obliged.

I just counted, actually, & I only know 98 characters, & that includes my pets.

Was there something else I was supposed to talk about today? I am a little sleepy. I should perhaps eat some food. Mmm, food.

Preface To Itchy & Scratchy: A Dilemma Rears Its Irritated Head

At Self Help Radio, we have a mere ninety minutes - much less, really, when you think about how much that fool Gary talks - let's say seventy-five minutes if we're feeling charitable - to try to cover a subject as comprehensively as possible. If the GloboChem Theme-O-Matic 3000 would give more specific themes - you know, like "skin irritation" rather than "itchy & scratchy" - we might be able to be more thorough, possibly even exhausting, about our subjects. But let's be honest, the GloboChem Theme-O-Matic 3000 thinks we're all much stupider than it is, so it lobs soft balls.

With overarching themes - especially "double" themes like "itchy & scratchy" - there's bound to be something left out. & let me tell you, this week - on the show's premiere on Lexington radio! - we're going to find ourselves in a bit of a bind. Because if you mention "scratching" & music in the same sentence you are alluding to one of the cornerstones of hip hop culture. & there's no way Self Help Radio can cover the history of scratching - or even highlight the greats in the field - in just one set. & until an entire show can be called "scratching" - which seems like a good idea right about now, doesn't it GloboChem Theme-O-Matic 3000? - the entire show can't be entirely about scratching when there's also itching right there in the title.

Oh, management is convinced the issue will be handled tastefully & satisfactorily, but they never listen to the show; they just sit in their fat offices counting all the money. By the way, none of that money is made by Self Help Radio - the show is a tax write-off - but they don't need to be as nice as they are. They could be way more dismissive. We sometimes wish they were more dismissive. It might justify some of the show's embarrassment.

We know, you're asking, well, what the hell can I do about? Hmm. Maybe you can answer that better than the staff of Self Help Radio. We're going to go listen to a DJ Q-Bert record now.

There Are Times I've Been So Lucky...

...to not have had something like a blog. It's true! There have been times & situations where a permanent airing of my thoughts on personal events would have come back to bite me on the ass later on when they were inconsequential or otherwise irrelevant to current events - or they would've been embarrassing at the very least. I can think of two.

One was my first really intense break-up. Man, if I had committed to the blogosphere what I confided to friends I would be reviled & justly mistrusted, not just between the people involved in the break-up, but later women who dated me. Some things one thinks & writes in pain shouldn't be shared. Or at least the names should be changed to protect the guilty.

The other was a difficult situation at KOOP radio. I started my blog two or so years after a serious political crisis at that station, but if I had been writing it during that time - well, I would hope I would have been more prudent about what I said - but in some of those deliberations things were said about me that I might have thought to refute in a blog form. Certainly things like that could be quoted out of context & they would have been. One personal email written by me to one of my antagonists at the time ended with the line, "Thank you, this will be very helpful." An entire blog - even full of the usual nonsense I write - would've been me just spoon-feeding ammunition (that's a weird mixed metaphor) to my political rivals.

The reason I am thinking about this is because, having recently left another radio station, I feel a mighty urge to tell stories about my time there. As you might imagine, some of the stories I would tell would perhaps cast the station in a bad light. I am certain most of the people there wouldn't notice or care if I said something negative about their station, but there's a psychological situation with complaining that makes people think the complainer is the one with the qualities he or she is attributing to the one complained about. Any radio stations in my future would not only have my bitching to look on, & surely that would reflect badly on me.

So I won't. Not in this forum. I've toyed with the idea of writing a book about my experiences at KOOP & maybe one day I will. But there will be no tell-all on this blog. Too scary for me. Too dangerous.

The Relocation Has Happened

Yes, gentle listener, Self Help Radio had finally saved up enough for a bus ticket from West Virginia but, instead of going to Hollywood to fulfill its dream of being a movie starlet at a lunch counter, it only had enough nickels to get to Lexington, Kentucky. But that's okay! It's very nice here! There's vegan pizza!

One very nice thing about Lexington, Kentucky, is that it was an awesome college radio, WRFL, & one of the reasons for its awesomeness is that it allows non-students to deejay. & so, I am very happy to announce that Self Help Radio will premiere on 88.1 fm WRFL on Wednesday night (August 11) at midnight. (Technically, it's Thursday morning, August 12, at midnight, but you know how I feel about midnight. Or do you? No? I'll tell you, then: I feel like it's the same day I woke up until I go to sleep unless I stay up past dawn, then it's the next day.) Huzzah! Hooray!

Oh, & you can listen live, if you are so inclined. You should go listen now. You'll love it.

This is only a fill-in position for a couple of weeks but I am hoping to continue in the fall. Cross your fingers for me!

There will also be new episodes of Sugar Substitute following Self Help Radio on the next two Wednesdays. The other shows I do will continue to appear on Saturdays starting next Saturday. There's still a lot of stuff in boxes, you know. Books & stuff. I might also have put the bus I was on in a box. Something does smell like diesel.

Did you hear me say hooray! & also huzzah! Self Help Radio on WRFL! Yippee!

I Know, It's Tuesday

But there are boxes of music everywhere & they can't be opened for a new Self Help Radio this week. But they'll be safely taken to Lexington in two days & then, next Tuesday, a new Self Help Radio! Hooray! Huzzah!

What? You didn't even know we were gone? Oh, bother.

Taking A Week Off

Hello, friends. Self Help Radio has finally found a hole in the fence & will be escaping from West Virginia in a matter of days. But that escape will allow the show only to carry a few songs, for even though we're not going far - just a hundred miles west to Lexington, Kentucky - we can't carry everything we need to make a radio show. No, we'll have to forage for it once we're there.

So the next Self Help Radio show will happen a week from Tuesday. As for the extra shows - like Tags & Tricks, which was supposed to happen tomorrow - that will happen two weeks from tomorrow.

Keep your eyes on this blog for furtive developments. I mean, further. Further developments. Furtively.

A Parting Guest

It's by James Whitcomb Riley!

WHAT delightful hosts are they—
     Life & Love!
Lingeringly I turn away,
     This late hour, yet glad enough
They have not withheld from me
     Their high hospitality.
So, with face lit with delight
     & all gratitude, I stay
     Yet to press their hands & say,
"Thanks.—So fine a time! Good night."

Riley wrote that after listening to this week's Self Help Radio (only he did it sometime in the late 19th century - don't ask me how) (ask Doctor Who how!) which you can listen to like an old poet at selfhelpradio.net!

Be my guest. Really. Be my guest!

Whither Be My Guest?

Hello! You're here for the party, I see. I must ask: do you know the rules? The Guest Rules?

They are available all over the place, but I will freely share them with you as I freely share my home.

Rule number one: did I invite you here? I did! Was it a formal invitation? It was! Did you RSVP?

Oh, you don't know what that means. It's French, the initials for "répondez s'il vous plaît." It means, "Respond, please," or, in the colloquial, "write back, bitch!"

So, you didn't. I see. Because you didn't know.

Well, why bother with the other rules if you're not going to follow the first? Jeez, who doesn't know what RSVP means? Get out! GET OUT!

Because I can't follow the Host Rules if you're too lazy to follow the Guest Rules.

I will keep this bottle of wine you brought as well as the spinach artichoke dip. I can't stand these chips, though. Too salty. Ick.

Next time follow the Guest Rules! You've only yourself to blame!

Preface To Be My Guest: Please Listen To Dickenbock Electronics!

It's true! I finally put Saturday's episode of Dickenbock Electronics on the Self Help Radio website for your listening enjoyments. You may visit selfhelpradio.net to listen to your heart's content.

Hey! There's new stuff from Mount Kimbie & James Blake & Baths & Walls. There's old stuff from Child's View & Console & Fila Brazillia. Someone wanted to hear Front 242 so I played Front 242. That's the kind of show it was. It is. It's there! For you!

Or are you like me & just totally freaked out about tonight's True Blood. I mean, my gosh!

Today's Dickenbock Electronics...

...will be posted some time tomorrow. I had a busy day.

Bleep beep boop boop.

A Blog Reminisces: When I Was 900

Bunny, you're a weirdo. Someone asked me to write a song in the middle of dinner, so I used snatches of conversation for lines 2 & 6 & for an unusually large portion of the chorus. Then I proceeded to inform the guest panel that I, indeed, helped write the controversial lyrics for the Will Smith song which contain the profound lines, "You saw my blinker, bitch."

Is it cosplay if you dress like Donny & I dress like Marie? Someone told me the best way to enjoy ackee & saltfish is not to eat the saltfish & to compliment the ackee. No, ackee fruit is not tacky fruit. You're thinking of mangoes. What fruit have you not eaten nor heard of? There is a remarkable amount of fruit on this planet, you certainly can't have tried them all.

In Proverbs, you might read, "Pride goeth before destruction, & an haughty spirit before a fall." Then you might think "AN haughty"? That's very British. Don't the British often fail to pronounce their aitches? Like they say "ello" & "ospital" & "omoseuxal"? Then wouldn't that read, in King James English, "a naughty spirit"? Is a haughty spirit always a naughty spirit? Who's translating whom here?

Can I raise half a glass (I drank the other half already) for 900 blog posts on this worthless blog? Let me put it another way. Is it at all possible any of you never-sober Onanists - who can't be bothered to even pretend to care at this point about my self-indulgent radio flights of fancy - would mind if I made a meaningless toast to a meaningless achievement at this point in the alcoholic proceedings? If so, please, might I suggest that you venture outside to play a game of hide-&-go-fuck-yourself? If not, then, hooray! A toast to 900 entries on this blog! May the fates be kind & not make me write 900 more!

A Life Underlived

Weird "milestones" like writing almost 900 blog posts make me think about the things I don't do or accomplish more than the things that I have done or plan to do. For example: when you log on to Blogger, it gives you a screen which lists all the blog you "subscribe" to or "follow." Wanna know how many I am subscribed to? None. Nada. The blogs I read regularly are bookmarked on my browser, so I don't have to log on to Blogger to find them. It may seem a ridiculously small thing, but it saves me that one step.

But it does mean I exist outside whatever community could possibly be created by being a "follower" of a blog. You know, they might notice that I like their blog, & return the compliment. Or someone who likes one of the blogs I like might notice this blog. There are always good reasons to dip one's toe into the lukewarm pool of human interaction, not the least of which is to alert folks who might not know that there's something called Self Help Radio which isn't a self-help radio show at all.

I just don't do that. I have a myspace page & a Facebook page & of course the selfhelpradio.net website & this blog & really I don't do much else. Some might say what I already do is a lot - other, more popular radio shows don't even bother. But if I were an up & coming band, this would be the bare bones of what I'd do to promote myself. & I'm not up & coming. I'm down & going.

The blog thing is pretty easy to maintain & write in, & it doesn't smack of crass hype. (That's a redundant phrase.) Also, since no one reads this, I'm not too worried about the content, which of course is probably why I don't try to enter into some kind of reciprocal relationship in the blogosphere: it's not a very interesting blog, is it.

I guess, though, it's better than 899 posts of my awful poetry. Hey! I could make a blog of that!

Countdown To 900!

Imagine, I'm two posts away from 900 entries into this blog! That means that, if I write here today & tomorrow, Friday will be number 900. Not all of the entries have been full-sized & virtually none of them were interesting, but it's surely something of an achievement. I've previously tallied the length of time that it took to reach other milestones, so let me update that (assuming, as I probably shouldn't, that I'll reach 900 by Friday):

I started this blog on September 12, 2006.
The 100th post happened on March 7, 2007. That would've been roughly 176 days later.
The 200th post happened on August 13, 2007. (158 days after the 100th post.)
The 300th post happened on January 9, 2008. (149 days after the 200th post.)
The 400th post happened on May 26, 2008. (138 days after the 300th post.)
The 500th post happened on October 14, 2008. (141 days after the 400th post.)
The 600th post happened on March 25, 2009. (162 days after the 500th post.)
The 700th post happened on September 23, 2009. (186 days after the 600th post.)
The 800th post happened on February 19, 2010. (149 days since the the 700th post.)
& the 900th post will happen on July 23, 2010 - which would make it 154 days since number 800.

If I add it all up, it's 900 posts spread amongst 1,413 days - an average of .64 posts a day. If my math is right, & it probably isn't, that's about one post every three days.

By the way, virtually no one visits this blog, which is about right, since that's also the number of people that listen to Self Help Radio. I have "Google Analytics" installed to keep track of visits, but I don't think it's all that reliable - I've talked to people who've said - sincerely, so I should believe them - they've downloaded & listened to certain shows, & the Analytics contradicts them. But if I just use the Analytics data, I can see that this blog has had a mere forty visits in the past month, & of them, it says, only eleven were "absolute unique visitors." If you're reading this, you're an absolutely unique visitor. That makes you awesome.

Should I plan something special for number 900? I sure like adding up days. We'll see. One special thing that'll happen that day for sure is my love returns home from Africa then. That's celebration enough for me!

There's A Riot Goin' On

On July the twentieth, 2010
I was serving time in the state pen
Ten o'clock at night
I was ready to do my show
I heard a whistle blow
And I heard somebody bellow

There's a riot goin' on!
There's a riot goin' on!
There's a riot goin' on!
Over at selfhelpradio.net!

Yes, you can listen to today's Self Help Radio by clicking the above link. It's the closest thing to being in a riot short of having a self-important neighbor beat you down with a truncheon. Listen!

Whither Riots?

Ah ah ah! you say. You, sir, have been slacking off! We know for a fact that today is your show, & usually you write your "whither this theme" or "whether that theme" on the day or so before your show! In fact, isn't it true you haven't written anything in this blog for days & days?

It's true, I haven't written since Saturday. But I have good reasons!

Everyone always thinks they have good reasons for neglect!

Well, now, I don't mean to neglect this blog. I spent the day Sunday in Lexington, Kentucky, for reasons that may become clearer later.

Ooo, a mystery!

No mystery - we're relocating there. & by we, I mean, the family. Self Help Radio will still be produced by increasingly deranged clones of myself in a little shack somewhere outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. Or Hong Kong. Wherever they've stored the cloning machine.

So Self Help Radio will be on the air in Lexington!

You're not listening.

What happened Monday?

In what spirit is that question asked?

Why didn't you write in this stupid blog, you self-involved homunculus?

Oh, I've been going through my old stuff, throwing most of it away - like I should've done in Austin but there was no time to do before we moved. I spent hours yesterday. I found some amazing stuff.

Such as?

None of your business. Do you wanna hear about riots?

Can't I just wait for the show today?

You can!

Hooray! Sugar Substitute!

That kind of sounds like a cheer you might hear from a diabetic. I don't mean that. I mean that today's episode of Sugar Substitute, which is the pop show I used to do every-other-week after Self Help Radio, but which I now do every-four-weeks on Saturdays, is now available for your listening pleasure if you are one of those people who uses a computer to listen to music. I am one of those people too. I should go listen!

Oh, I forgot to tell you where it is. It is where it ought to be, at selfhelpradio.net. It's where the elite meet the effete. Not the elite effete nor the effete elite - only the non-elite effete meet the non-effete elite. It just seemed safer that way.

Thanks for listening!

Funny How Time Fails

It's not nearly enough to copy old poetry & pretend it's how you currently feel. Even old photos won't quite capture the way you finally want to feel today. Because at the time you didn't know how you felt & now that you do you no longer feel that way. Did you think you were the only person feeling unfeeling then, & now do you think no one else fails to feel the same?

Some people would be more impressed with how much money you spent on video games you can barely remember playing. You might as well have been drunk, or doing drugs, or signed up for an informal class in which you learned some sort of craft you would never use. You might even now feel that, somewhat, in your hands, like something you once did but cannot or will not do anymore.

Luckily no one believes now that you reach a certain age with a cachet of answers, sometimes called "wisdom," since the bare stupidity of the world is on continual display. But you did believe that, didn't you. You thought at some point you could walk out of the therapy room in your head & begin living life like a character in a movie right before the credits.

Even if your insides now are simply a reverse mirror image of your outsides then, you can still continue. Just tread lightly. & for fuck's sake, be honest with yourself. What's wanting is not what is, & may never be, but what you're wanting is what you are.

& stop going through the old boxes where you put your days after you've squandered them.

I'm Not Cruel

But Self Help Radio is today. It's all about the cruelty. You can hear it all at selfhelpradio.net.

I hope you'll be so kind as to have a listen. I thank you.

Whither Cruelty?

Cruelty is the opposite of kindness. To someone with a healthy morality, cruelty is so incorrect, so wrong, so needless, so vile. Yet humans can be so cruel, so unconsciously cruel, so uselessly cruel. To strangers, to family members, to friends, to lovers. Some people even enjoy it.

We are, it seems to me, most cruel to animals. Most of us eat them, which may not seem so cruel until you realize that it's not necessary for us to eat animals to stay alive. & in the United States, the majority of the animals eaten live such constrained & torturous lives that the phrase "free range" is attached to the animals which are not raised & processed in factory farms. We experiment on them, our scientists & researchers for corporations, such horrible tests that a product which is not tested on animals is called "cruelty-free." We pollute their habitats & we've hunted many of them to the brink of extinction, if not extinction outright, often just for sport.

People can justify all of these things as not cruel, & that's also a cruelty, the self-justification that is the process of the human mind, a cruelty to ourselves. Our brains, alas, are wired in such a way as to make it possible for us to explain in glowing terms the miserable things we do, to ourselves, to others, to other creatures. If we don't pay attention to what our mind does, we can find ourselves as cruel as those we loathe & abhor, & we can still vindicate ourselves in the process. Many is a cruel human being who thinks him or herself truly kind.

I myself remember my cruelties as vividly as my kindnesses. I have stepped back & traced the steps which led me to a satisfaction that the cruelty wasn't so cruel, or was even a kindness in disguise. In many cases, the very fact that I was not caught, or was not specifically blamed for a cruel action, was enough to release me from crippling guilt - unless someone else was blamed. My cruelties, fortunately, have never resulted in any real harm (I tell myself at least) because most were petty, mere outbursts of cruelty at perceived wrongs, never anything planned & executed with intent to cause great pain. Maybe most of our cruelties are like that.

Most, but obviously not all.

Preface To Cruelty: The Past Is Cruel, You Know

I just spent an afternoon going through many a box of stuff. I should have gone through these boxes of stuff many many years ago. They contain notebooks, letters, newspaper clipping, scraps of stuff saved from the past twenty-five years. I am trying to lessen the amount of things that I am dragging with me through time. I know it only has value to me. If I were to die tomorrow, no one would spend any time going through it; it would just be tossed away. But my friend Joe said today that he keeps the stuff as a kind of evidence of existence, no matter how ridiculous.

Names of people I'll never see again, some of whom I can barely remember. A note here, a letter there. I read through some of them, just to see if it stirs any memories. Do they still exist? Should I look for them online, on Facebook, do a Google search? If they're not looking for me - & I think it's pretty easy to find me online - should I even bother looking for them? Probably not. Everything, it seems, happened a long time ago.

How cruel, my past, you have been to me today. How appropriate, too, on this week when Self Help Radio examines cruelty.

The Zeke Moonshine Show?!?

Yeah, yeah, Zeke Moonshine wanted to just call it the Zeke Moonshine Show. He said, "The Heliocentric Hootenanny is already taken." Of course, Zeke is really just me speaking in a vaguely Southern accent. Not really all that convincing. Maybe that explains the vague egotism. I mean, I'd never call a radio show "The Gary Dickerson Show," but I guess I don't mind if it's a dumb pseudonym. I hope it doesn't offend Dick Dickenbock or Vance Chamberlain. Those guys are sensitive.

The show is waiting for your eager ears at selfhelpradio.net. It's just the first episode, so forgive it its shortcomings. But the records are really all that scratchy. I can't help that.

Countdown To Yesterday

Tomorrow is the premiere of my country/blues show, & I don't have a name yet. Seriously. I don't have a name. It was hard enough to come up with Tags & Tricks for the jazz show. What shall I call an old-timey blues & country show? Why aren't you helping?

I do think that I'm going to let my old pal (& seventh cousin thrice removed) (the last time he was removed was by the sheriff) Zeke Moonshine. Maybe he'll come up with a name. But you know, if he comes up with a name, it's going to be something like "Zeke Moonshine's Country & Blues Emporium" or "Zeke Moonshine's Ninety Minutes Of Hoots" or "Zeke Moonshine Presents Scratchy Radio For Your Edjumacation." It'll be Zeke Moonshine something, that's for sure. Can you live with that?

I guess I can too. Check back tomorrow! I'll let you know when the show's been posted to selfhelpradio.net!

Something Creepy This Way Creeps...

Okay, it's not that creepy. I mean, this isn't a Halloween show or anything like that. It's just a show with the theme "creep." It covers people who are creeps, things that are creepy, & people & things that creep. Very straightforward. Ish.

You can listen to the show now at selfhelpradio.net. I'd write more about it but I don't want to be a creep & hassle you. If you wanna listen to it, you can listen to it.

But seriously. Listen to it.

Whither Creep?

There are nine meanings of the word "creep" which pertain to this week's Self Help Radio:

(I got the following definitions from dictionary.com.)

The verb form that means "to move slowly with the body close to the ground, as a reptile or an insect, or a person on hands & knees."

The verb form that means "to approach slowly, imperceptibly, or stealthily (often followed by up )."

The verb form that means "to sneak up behind someone or without someone's knowledge (usually followed by up on )."

The noun form that means "an act or instance of creeping."

The verb form that means "to grow along the ground, a wall, etc., as a plant." Also the noun form of such a plant: "creeper."

The noun form that means "a boring, disturbingly eccentric, painfully introverted, or obnoxious person." Although I would add that a creep often makes one feel creepy.

Speaking of, the adjectival form ("creepy") that means both "having or causing a creeping sensation of the skin, as from horror or fear" & "of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a person who is a creep; obnoxious; weird."

& of course the pluralized noun form ("the creeps") that means "a sensation of horror, fear, disgust, etc., suggestive of the feeling induced by something crawling over the skin."

There are more than nine definitions of "creep," you know. I can't be expected to cover them all.

Preface To Creep: This Show Will Have Nothing To Do With Richard M. Nixon

What do John N. Mitchell, G. Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, & Charles Colson have in common? They're all C.R.E.E.P.s!

It's one of history's most felicitous acronymic errors - these felons (& they all served time for the Watergate break-in & related criminal activities) meant their Committee for the Re-Election of the President to be abbreviated CRP, but, with absence of foresight - or simply not having seen the letters written down - they didn't predict that their political rivals - or really anyone with common sense - would see a better acronym was CREEP.

That's too funny to be true. But it was a simpler time. Irony hadn't yet become America's bailiwick.

But this week's show has nothing to do with the Committee for the Re-Election of the President. Alas!

Tags & Tricks, Episode One

The first episode of my all-new jazz show (the show is all new; the jazz I played isn't) is now available for your listening pleasure (if you wish) at selfhelpradio.net.

I'm pretty excited about it, since I enjoy jazz & wish I played more jazz but really don't know a damn thing about jazz. Maybe this will help me learn. Maybe I should write "things I learned from this week's episode" type summaries at the end of every radio show I do. I learn a lot! But then, maybe you'd think of them as "Cliff's Notes" of the shows & then you wouldn't listen. Because you don't love music. You Philistine!

Interestingly, I've used the epithet "Philistine" against people who don't love art & learning before, but until now, I didn't really know what it meant. I assumed it was Biblical, but here's the explanation, taken from this web site:

"The key turning point toward the modern sense of the word occurred in Germany. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a quarrel between university students & local townspeople in Jena in 1693 resulted in the killing of a student. In a sermon at the student's funeral, a speaker used the German word Philister ('Philistine') as an insult to the townspeople. Soon German university students began widely applying the term to anyone they regarded as an outsider, that is, someone who was not a student, hence a nonstudious, unenlightened, uncultured person."

Now that's something I learned today!

What Is "Tags & Tricks"?

My desire to express as many elements as possible of my music collection can be wearying. It was hard enough, oh those many years ago, to come up with the name "Self Help Radio" for a radio show. (I was originally going to call it "Too Stupid To Die.") (Back in my KVRX days the best name I came up with for my show, which aired on Mondays, was "Thursdays With Gary." So the tagline would be, "Every Monday night, it's Thursdays with Gary!" That book "Tuesdays With Morrie" came out around that time, which made the name seem derivative & stupid.) (Yeah, like "Self Help Radio" is original.) (Anyway.) Now that I have "Self Help Radio," "Sugar Substitute" & "Dickenbock Electronics," I wanted equally snappy names for my new jazz & old-timey country & blues show. But what?

I was reading around about jazz & on this Wikipedia quotes page, I found this "definition" of jazz from an obvious fan in 1927:

"Jazz is not a 'form' but a collection of tags & tricks."
Ernest Newman. The Sunday Times, "The World of Music", 4 September 1927.

That's hilarious, yeah? So why not call the show "Tags & Tricks"? So I shall.

& hey! It premieres tomorrow! Look for it on selfhelpradio.net!

Pretend Moral

A cautionary tale of two men who couldn't play guitar, written by little Dickie Dickenbock.

One man who couldn't play guitar was Dave. He not only couldn't play guitar but was tone-deaf.

The other man who couldn't play guitar was Rick. He loved rock & roll & wanted to be a rock & roller. In fact, he loved the work "rock." He appreciated when bands sang songs about "rock." When his favorite radio show, which had "rock" in the title, went off the air at his local public radio station, he almost didn't renew his membership until he realized there was another show with "rock" in the title replacing it. It was a completely different show, but he felt that it was important that the word "rock" was out there.

Naturally, the two of them formed a band. It was awful. They found a drummer who could keep time, & a bassist who looked mean, but no matter how they tried, Dave & Rick couldn't play guitar. They played for friends at parties, they played a "battle of the bands" night at their favorite bar, they practiced in a space where other bands could hear them, & the verdict was clear: they weren't a very good band.

It also didn't help that Dave was the lead singer.

One night, at a show where they opened for a friend's band, a very nice man named Jeff happened to hear two guys at the bar making fun of the band. The drinking buddies started with band's name - Solid Rock - & quickly found their way to the band's sheer inability to play. Jeff was infuriated by this. In addition to the cruelty of the comments, & the lack of sympathy for anyone having to perform in a live venue, the two fellows - Jeff thought - seemed to think such people couldn't get better. What if this were their first show? Maybe even the Beatles sounded like this when they had just started!

Jeff decided to become the band's manager. He did everything in his power - straining his marriage, missing a promotion at work, investing his own money in the band's future - to help Dave & Rick get lessons, have time to practice, have places to play.

But nothing helped. They never got any better. Their songs were derivative, their on-stage antics embarrassing, their skills barely progressing past their first show. (Some even say the drummer lost the ability to keep time.) When the bassist was arrested for assaulting a man he thought was hitting on his girlfriend, Dave & Rick, exhausted by all the hard work they put in & resentful of the world's disinterest, told Jeff they were quitting. Rick said, "It's okay. Rock & roll will never die."

Jeff eventually lost his job & he & his wife separated soon after.

The moral of the story is this: you can encourage anyone to follow their dreams, but you probably shouldn't get involved. More often than not, it's not going to end well.

The Day Of The Remains

I've already mentioned that this week's episode of Self Help Radio is available for listening at selfhelpradio.net, didn't I? It's about tunnels. You love tunnels. You should go listen to it.

My wife just left me. Now, wait, that came out wrong. She's going to come back. I hope. She says she will. She's going to Africa to do scientific stuff for an entire month. That's right! Thirty American days! & it's summer, so the days are longer!

Anyway, my wife has temporarily left me so of course I can now concentrate on making great radio for you. Unless you're leaving too. Well, I will assume you're not. & if you are, don't tell me. I'm too fragile at the moment.

I am going to make great radio for you for the month of March. That's wonderful, isn't it? Starting this Saturday, when I premiere my jazz program, "Tags & Tricks." Why is it called that? You're have to listen!

Since I put it on my website, you know, you can listen to it anywhere. Even if you're leaving. Rats! I should have told that to my wife.

Whither Tunnels?

I feel like I've been in a tunnel for a couple of days & have only now emerged. My apologies for not being as disciplined with this blog as I should, but the wife is leaving the country for a while (she's not on the lam, just being a scientist) so I've been spending time with her. Also, I nap a lot. So please, pardon my tunnel vision.

But! The tunnel has a light at the end & that light is this week's Self Help Radio, which went off with the adequate number of hitches (whatever that means) & which you can listen to at your leisure at selfhelpradio.net.

Might I suggest listening to it in a tunnel?

Preface To Tunnels: The Many Tunnels I've Been In

I guess I've been in a lot of tunnels. The longest tunnel - & possibly the scariest - was the tunnel under the English Channel. That tunnel is 31 miles long. Shorter tunnels I go through nearly every day - underneath the railroad tracks that separate Huntington-by-the-river from Huntington-by-the-highway. (I don't know if those are official designations.)

There are some awesome tunnels through mountains at the Virginia/West Virginia border on highway 77 in the Jefferson National Forest. I don't know how long they are but they are fun to drive through. It made me think of the tunnel in The Fugitive, well-lit but with mysterious doors into which Harrison Ford can escape.

A tunnel I've been through multiple times is the tunnel that separates the Oakland/Berkeley area from the eastern suburbs of the Bay Area (where the wife is from). It can be unbearably hot on one side of the tunnel, & then, emerging toward San Francisco, the temperature will have dropped twenty degrees, & it's the perfect temperature for rolling down the window & speeding toward The City.

The wikipedia says that "tunnels in general... are at least twice as long as they are wide." I would also think that tunnels tend to be horizontal - or somewhat horizontal - so a hole in the ground is a tunnel at all. A tunnel can be on an angle, of course. Just not vertical. Although - now that I think about it - though the wikipedia (again) says a tunnel is "an underground passageway," surely you can have tunnels in giant spacecraft, yes? Or giant vehicles of any kind? & those aren't technically underground, are they?

Hurrah! Dickenbock Electronics!

Yes, hooray! The first Saturday episode of Dickenbock Electronics went off without any complaints by the Robot Board Of Trustees. I don't trust those trustees. They're untrustworthy.

It's available where it ought to be at selfhelpradio.net. You can listen to it at your leisure. Or actively, if your circuits require it. Guaranteed to increase your personal processing speed by 0.007%!

Next week will be the premiere of my jazz show. Which is currently untitled. Do you want to name it? You can if you want. Just send me an email. Otherwise I'll be forced to come up with a name myself. Eep.

Dream-Ending Dreams

I just woke up from a nap, & what woke me up was what I call a "dream-ending dream." These dreams are both impossibly familiar, & at the same time so completely absurd, that it shocks your system into consciousness just to assess their near-comic outrageousness.

There's nothing more boring than listening to someone tell you his or her dream (unless it's someone who think they can "interpret" a dream) (or than watching someone tell someone else their dream & having it interpreted) so I won't bore you with details except that this dream seemed to be about a "tradition," which is to say, something I did every year or so (which I never have) & which also referenced past examples of the tradition. The dream, therefore, either referred back to other dreams I've had (which seems terribly unlikely, with this fading memory of mine), or it created those memories & made them feel like memories in the dream.

The latter is more probable, & that's why dreams are so awesome. Still, if, when you dream, you retain a modicum of your own sense of self - like, for example, you're scared of heights, & in a dream you're going to bungee jump or parachute - then the dream of something so unlike you - or so unlikely that you would ever do such a thing - so disturbs your sense of self that it becomes a "dream-ending dream." It wakes you up to take stock of your sense of self, &, in the midst of the dream's artificial familiarity & its haphazardly concocted reminiscences, you have to return to consciousness just to make sure it wasn't real.

I don't think most of these "dream-ending dreams" are scary to the point of nightmare, but some of them have been a little on the exciting side - involving chases or other dramatic movie-style sequences - again, referencing something that probably couldn't or wouldn't ever happen to me.

I do wonder if they're the body's way of waking one up when one needs to wake up from, say, an overlong afternoon nap. I know a dude who naps thirty minutes each day in the afternoon. Thirty minutes! It usually takes that long for me to get to sleep!

Hey Choosers!

See, I know you're not beggars. Since beggars can't be choosers. Ergo, through the transitive property of fol de rol, with only a slight detour through the axioms of gibberish & nonsense, Q.E.D. ipso facto, you must be the choosers who cannot be beggars. I defy you to find the logic in my reasoning!

Since you are choosers & since you do in fact have a choice, & since I'm usually the last choice in pretty much anything, I might as well make sure you know you have a choice in radio shows if/when you should want to listen to them. (You can choose not to, I know.) That choice which you can be chosen last if you so choose is Self Help Radio, & this week's episode, which is about beggars (not choosers), is now available at selfhelpradio.net.

Is the show a choice blend of great musics? I wouldn't choose that language. But I think I chose well, among all the songs available about begging.

Please enjoy.

"Mendicancy"

Three more things to say about begging:

1) I have a story about something sort of like begging I did when I was in middle school, but it is really quite embarrassing - one of those things you either have to go all the way with or else risk it being uncovered by an unscrupulous biographer. Not that I'll ever have anyone write a biography about me. But if I did. I'd prefer not to tell.

2) One thing I'm not ashamed of, though it irritates some people I know, is that I generally give change to people who ask me for it on the street. In Austin, walking down Guadalupe in the afternoon, I'd empty my pockets for the bums & street kids who were there. When I was a smoker, I'd also give away cigarettes. It seemed the least I could do. So far I've only been hit up by folks outside a Chinese restaurant here in Huntington, & I've given them change, too. Although the two or three people who've asked me for money have been specific & have wanted at least a dollar. Which suggests to me that, even if there isn't much competition, there are fewer people around here willing to part with their coinage, so your average West Virginian beggar needs to aim higher.

3) But I don't give money to people begging at intersections or near highway off-ramps. I don't know why that bugs me so much. Maybe because I am forced to look at them - which is what they want - & feel a little guilty. I think also that I sometimes worry if I give them money, I'll hold up traffic. Anyway, they don't seem to do that in West Virginia, either. But in Austin, there was usually someone at major roads & off-ramps. At one intersection near where I lived in Austin, there'd be bums begging at almost every corner. You couldn't avoid them.

Remember, there's an entire Self Help Radio show about begging coming tomorrow! It's true! I'll let you know when it happens!

Whither Begging?

Oh, you know, there's a wikipedia article about begging, which contains the hilarious line: "Beggars rarely recorded their techniques, & often used to disguise their own communication." It's sometimes pretty hard to read their signs, it's true. & I guess they would get lost down the ages.

There's also a helpful list of notable beggars. (I checked, I wasn't there.)

The word seems to have an interesting & disputed past. Here's what it says at this online encyclopedia:

Beggar, one who begs, particularly one who gains his [or her] living by asking the charitable contributions of others . The word, with the verbal forrn " to beg," in Middle English beggen, is of obscure history . The words appear first in English in the 13th century, & were early connected with "bag," with reference to the receptacle for alms carried by the beggars . The most probable derivation of the word, & that now generally accepted, is that it is a corruption of the name of the lay communities known as Beguines & Beghards, which, shortly after their establishment, followed the friars in the practice of mendicancy.

It goes on to mention - then discount - another origin, which the Wiktionary definition thinks is probable: "Probably from Old English bedecian." What does bedecian mean? According to the above encyclopedia, bedecian is "a rare Old English word... which is apparently connected with the Gothic bidjan... but between the occurrence of bedecian at the end of the 9th century & the appearance of 'beggar' & 'beg' in the 13th, there is a blank, & no explanation can be given of the great change in form."

Take that!

The Free Dictionary takes a different view. It says the word beggar is from "Middle English, from Old French begart, ultimately from Middle Dutch beggaert, one who rattles off prayers." Since I know that holy folks from England to Delhi have been beggars & lived in poverty for centuries, I kinda dig this origin.

But I am not an etymologist, so I can only look at what everyone is saying, & pretend I have earned an opinion in the matter.

Also, mendicancy? Let's bring that word back into wider usage, shall we?

Preface To Begging: What Shall I Put On My Sign Today?

A while back, the wife & I were driving through rural Ohio & we noticed some mildly creative - mostly groanworthy - church marquee signs. She said, "I think I should take some pictures & start collecting them!" One quick web search later, & we discovered (of course) that there was already such a site.

As I was thinking about beggars & begging - this week's theme - I thought about the crazy signs that people begging for money would have in Austin (not so many beggars in Huntington) & I thought, "I should have taken pictures!"

But of course someone already has. & also someone else. & probably more.

At least there's a place where I can get an idea if ever I am reduced to begging on the street. I like this one:

What's Coming Next

I am saying my goodbyes to WMUL this week, & have done my last show there, but of course Self Help Radio will continue as it has, with or without a radio station, heck! with or without listeners! I will have new shows every Tuesday but I'm loathe to abandon the other shows that I've also been doing, Dickenbock Electronics & Sugar Substitute.

Thus & therefore I'll continue to do them, but will do them now on Saturdays, & I'll add a couple of shows to satisfy my restless musical wanderings; one will be a jazz show, the other will be an old-time scratchy record country & blues show. I haven't come up with names yet. Do you want to help me name them?

The shows will alternate so they're basically monthly. Self Help Radio weekly, the other shows monthly. Self Help Radio on Tuesdays, the other shows on Saturday. More material for me to share. More material for you to ignore!

What's coming next is really not so different from what is, but I thought I should tell you anyway. Y'know?

Told you!

I told you I could do an entire show with songs entitled "Tell Me"! Didn't I tell you? Don't tell me I didn't! I remember telling you I could do an entire show of different songs with a single title. You said, "Tell me the title." I said, "That's it!"

The show is available for your wonder & concern at selfhelpradio.net.

I'm telling you, it's true!

I Shouldn't Twitter

No. No, I shouldn't. No matter what Roger Ebert says.

What I am going to do is do Self Help Radio tonight (the theme is "tell me") on WMUL which is at 88.1 on the fm dial. It starts at 9pm, with a new episode of Sugar Substitute on at 10:30pm. Both shows will be archived later, of course, at selfhelpradio.net.

Stop me before I start to tweet!

Whither Tell Me?

I'm very excited by this show. I believe that, for the very first time ever (for me), every song I play on Self Help Radio will have the same title. Yes, there will be nothing but songs entitled "Tell Me" on this week's show. I think that's frickin' awesome.

Also, in case you've been wanting to hear some of the best music that's come out in the last couple of months, you can listen to June's Self Help Radio Extra, which is available at self help radio dot net slash extra dot html. It has twenty-two songs & last seventy five minutes. & best of all, there's not any of that annoying guy who does Self Help Radio talking anywhere on it. Enjoy!

Preface To Tell Me: You Don't Have To Tell Me After All

I never really did understand iambic pentameter. I think people believe that playwrights in the olden days that used iambic pentameter didn't deliberately set out to use iambic pentameter but instead just thought about the world in iambic pentameter. I myself think that's untrue, although I'm probably wrong. Just because I am lazy & don't think a lot about my "writing style" or even proper grammar, punctuation, & spelling doesn't mean that others don't. It seems a very human thing to ascribe one's own weaknesses onto others, probably as a way to self-justify. Ambition, discipline, skill - when one lacks those things (like I do), one chooses instead to ascribe popularity, fame, success, etc., to something like luck rather than genuine hard work & talent. So forget what I said. People who write in iambic pentameter probably mean to do so, following what to them is a serious poetic tradition, & they don't labor with it like I used to in high school, counting the syllables on my fingers. They have trained themselves to think in that form, to better let the words flow naturally & beautifully.

I am always slightly sad that I'll never have the same kind of success (due to my own lack of ambition, discipline & most of all skill) as others, but two things about my fate give me a little comfort. One is that luck can & does play a big part. I know, some people make their own luck, but sometimes that can backfire. The other is that more & more people are successful in smaller & smaller circles. Our society is becoming larger but more compartmentalized, with tiny subsubcultures now freely able to communicate & gather, ignoring or otherwise unaware of the attempts by the corporate world to create & sustain a monoculture with their own stars, musicians, & authorities. Therefore your average "success," though he, she or they can become wealthy, will not likely attain the level of success of a "star" even a decade ago. Everything is more diffuse.

In a way, it's becoming more like it used to be. Before film & music recording, & although word did reach smaller communities about famous actors & musicians, the "stars" of one's life were more than likely the talented people in one's vicinity.

Or maybe not. I'm just thinking out loud on a Sunday morning.

A Punishment Of Lindas

Surely, thought Carl with alarm, they don't expect me to memorize all this! There had to be at least five pages of rules & regulations. Or, with more annoying alliteration, "policies & procedures," as the fat man with the missing bottom teeth had told him in the tiny HR room where he filled out his paperwork. Jesus God, Carl almost muttered to himself, what you have to do to get a job these days.

"See Linda in room 12," the fat man had said, with a slight whistle, as his tongue pushed unopposed air through the gap in his teeth.

He glanced over the pages of company policy while he waited. Linda, of course, made Carl wait. Lindas were always making Carl wait.

Linda Meyer had been his high school guidance counselor, who had told him sadly that he wasn't "college material." He remembered sitting outside her office, missing lunch, just to have her glance over his grades, his SAT scores, his college applications, & then give him dire predictions about his future.

& Linda Smith, the first girl to kiss him, who made him wait for weeks before he could discover her badly padded bra.

& Linda West - who became Linda Strunk after a short-lived marriage - had been the minor Southwestern poet who had been his graduate advisor while he worked on his abortive master's degree. All those hours, waiting for her to finish some phone call with her fiancee, then later her ex-husband or her lawyer, they had worn him out. He had loved Robinson Jeffers so much, now he could barely read his name on a book's spine.

How many Lindas had he waited for his entire life? Linda Murphy, the other Linda Smith, the Linda who ran the dance studio where the Linda he was once married to took her daughter from a previous marriage, the Linda who had the bar who was born in Yorba Linda which is why she was called Linda ("I'm sure glad I wasn't named Yorba!") - his whole life a punishment of Lindas.

Linda Bingham was this Linda's name & she was friendly but curt. With professional perfunctoriness she highlighted the sections of the manual on which he would be tested after his training period. Everything, she said, is in this document, & she directed him to sign several forms.

She stood, asked him to wait, & left the office to get something approved. Linda's office, Carl thought, was tidy & tiny. There were no pictures on her desk, but she did have a corkboard the size of a dinner platter in the far left corner of the room, next to a Ziggy calendar. He didn't want to get up & be caught snooping so he leaned as close as he could from his chair to scan it. The usual cartoons were there - the obligatory Dilbert, of course, plus yellowing Far Side squares - as well as a couple of cards for birthdays or anniversaries. A small rectangle of paper the size of a fortune cookie fortune was the only thing he couldn't read, so he quickly got out of his chair to sneak a look.

It read, simply, "In the Zulu language, the word 'linda' means 'to wait.'"

Carl snapped back to his seat as if drawn by a powerful magnet. He felt like he should have know that fortune cookie fortune fact a long time ago.

& Linda Bingham made him wait twenty-two more minutes until she returned & welcomed him to the company.

The High Cost Of Afternoon Napping

I'm up now! Why do you have to be so loud?

YES I did my radio shows last night. Self Help Radio at 9pm, Dickenbock Electronics at 10:30pm. & I put them up this morning at selfhelpradio.net like I said I would. Then I went back to bed.

Why? Because I was up late & it's a warm & rainy day today. If I had a job, I'd go to work. As it is, it's a nice day for napping.

I'm going back to sleep. Go, go listen to my radio shows. Just, you know, keep it down.

Fifteen Days Later

Self Help Radio returns! A new night! A new time! Same old radio show, though.

Starting tonight at 9pm on WMUL (that's 88.1 on your fm dial), Self Help Radio sits in its summer home for the three hottest months of the year. But if you're not in Huntington, don't worry, the show will be archived by robot pixies tomorrow at selfhelpradio.net. This blog will let you know exactly when it's ready for you.

Excited? Look, at least the show's not going to compete with "Lost." That would've sucked.

Whither At What Cost?

There is (was?) a record store in Dallas (it still exists, though not where I used to visit, & here's its website) which was probably the first giant record store I had ever seen. The owner was a puffy middle-aged man with deep set eyes who seemed to be continually surrounded by skinny "new wave" boys.

An aside: when I was in high school, kids who looked like punks or goths or whatever were called "new wave." The wife, who's a decade younger than I am, pointed out some kids at the park yesterday & lamented that that was what they now call "goth." "Goth," she said, "meant something different in my day." But I apparently pre-dated the "goth" label. Suffice it to say, I was never anything but a kind of shambling mess.

This record store was pretty awesome to my high school mind. What seemed like millions of albums arranged alphabetically, on dozens of tables & on the floor, with cool posters (also for sale) all around the giant room. I didn't know or recognize most of them, of course - I gravitated immediately to the Bowie & Elvis Costello sections.

The biggest problem with the store was that there were no price tags. The owner, who was creepy & obviously gay, would simply stand there & you had to hold up what you wanted & ask the price. It became immediately clear that the amount one paid could be negotiated - if you were cute & flirty to the owner, for example, you'd pay less. As an ugly fat kid, I was at a tremendous disadvantage, although I think I once got a discount on an Elvis Costello import single by joking that I loved him so much I would marry him.

One had to give one's money to the owner, too. No cash register, just handing money & a wallet opened for change. The owner asked a friend of mine once if he could put the change in his pocket for him.

Rumors of course swirled around the alleged pedophile about criminal proceedings, but perhaps he was able to either keep his liaisons secret or he had some self-control. He seems to be doing fine now.

I only went to the store a few times in high school, & rarely returned once I went to college, although I did take my nephew to the place perhaps when he was in high school, which would have been in the mid to late 90s. I can't remember if prices were labelled at that point. But the "bartering" aspect of the store, with my own meager funds as a high school student, eventually made me come to loathe the store, despite its selection.

I just prefer to know what something costs up front.

Preface To At What Cost?: The Price Of Obscurity!

In recent correspondence with Mr. Elmer Comma of the Latin American division of World Canadian Surprises, Mr. Augustine Stained had this to say, painstakingly typed out in a text message when clearly some abbreviation was in order:

To any and all sundry concerned, I must needs forsooth express extreme displeasure at recent events notwithstanding the overall profit margin in relation to certain we must admit ill-conceived and indubitably ultimately self-defeating measures implemented with regard to earthquakes in Chile & Haiti as well as but not necessarily influencing financial disasters concomitant to and created by the current British Petroleum so-called oil leak which stands to affect our bottom line and the earning potential of the myriad programs in the pipe (no pun intended) for the expansion of our Caribbean division, overseen by not only Mr. Comma but also several people in our British Ecuadorian office who have of course been carbon-copied on this text message. In furtherance of both opportunity-seeking as well as damage control I have scheduled for four p.m. today a conference call using only the most inclusive and cutting-edge of technology so please confirm your attendance for the server boys. Yours sincerely, Mr. Augustine Monroe Stained, Senior Vice-President for Catapults and Conviviality, World Canadian Surprises, North American Polar Ice Cap Division. Please forward.

This test message was not read by any of the people to whom it was ostensibly sent; however, the crime fiction author & National Public Radio commentator Mr. Morton Smug spent a full thirteen minutes reading it with undetectable emotion on an episode of "This American Life" to be aired in the fall.

Mr. Augustine Stained continues to write long messages using only his iPhone & possibly a thesaurus, unaware that he was fired two years ago when the offices where he was supposedly working fell into the Arctic Sea, the glacier on which the office was built (on Mr. Stained's recommendation) having sunk overnight. Mr. Stained had begun working from home on that day. He enjoyed it so well that he chose never to return, which saved his life, although the current glacier on which he built his dream house will probably be gone in the next two years.

He in unaware of any lawsuits pending. He is still waiting for the 4pm conference call to begin.