Preface To Winning: I've Actually Never Seen That Show

This funny thing happened in the Onion AV Club this past week: a new ad for the old Charlie Sheen show (now starring Kelso from That 70's Show, who is making a lot of money from it) appeared & the Onion guys asked everyone to make fun of it. & so they did.

The idea for this week's show popped into my head a few months ago when they were making fun of Charlie Sheen a lot on The Soup but I confess I've never actually seen the show. As much as I love Duckie, I can't really say I've followed Jon Cryer's career, though I am happy when child stars still have careers when they're as old as I am. (By the way, I don't have a career, & also I was not a child star. I think that just makes me a wastrel.)

But since I watch The Soup, I did get to see Sheen say "winning" over & over, & it seemed like a good idea for a theme. It's kind of simple. I think I'm supposed to explain this tomorrow. Fuck. Now what will I write about tomorrow?

This was written on Witstream a while back & it sort of sums up how I feel about that show that made Sheen enough money & ego to implode the way he did, thus ruining a cash cow that he could have milked for at least five or ten more years:

I Almost Forgot: The Rain!

It's such nice rain, even in the summer. Did I talk once upon a time about the rain also in West Virginia? Such rain you've never seen in Texas. This is true: I believe that the whole American southwest such as it is is being desertified. (My spellcheck is telling me there's no such word as "desertify" although you can find many Googly articles on "desertification." Which, by the way, there's no such thing as.)

Anyway, Texas is turning into a desert like New Mexico & Arizona & it's too bad 'cause parts of the state are really quite nice. It just doesn't rain there like it does here. The rain there is mean, it comes with loud thunderstorms & usually happens at night, since it's just too hot in the day. (It's different in Houston, which is basically a swamp, so we'll ignore that part of Texas in this discussion.)

I like the rain in this part of the world. It does cause flash flooding & there's still thunder & lightning, & of course many meth labs have been accidentally washed away due to poor planning, but it's much nicer than the rain in the desert, which mainly pisses off the poisonous creatures there & is about as useful as a mirage.

Which reminds me, I am not a meteorologist & also I have no real idea what I am talking about. Mainly I just enjoy watching the rain. I also walked through the rain today. It was nice.

No, I haven't been drinking. Why would you ask such a thing?

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Four

I've written a few times on this blog about the inane "A Joke A Day" email service (I'm sure there's more than one) which I would often subscribe to for email accounts that, back in the day, were free but which I never used. Often those email accounts would expire if you didn't have email coming to them, but because I thought it was (at least initially) funny to have email accounts at startrekonline.com & muslimonline.com (both sites, & my email addresses, are long defunct), I'd sign up for an account & then subscribe to the A Joke A Day service. One account I use still gets them, & I rarely read them, but am too lazy to unsubscribe. I recently thought, what if I actually saved them, then featured what I consider the best, or funniest, or worst, or most notable, or simply something to talk about once a week? & so I shall.

This was going to be a "credit where it's due" sort of post, since yesterday's A Joke A Day was actually one of the best jokes I've heard in the past ten years, but then this A Joke A Day appeared today:

A man placed an ad in the classifieds: "Wife wanted."

The next day he received a hundred letters.

They all said the same: "You can have mine."

Really? Would the joke be as funny if it had been "Husband wanted"? Not in this sexist society.

Seriously, if men dislike their wives so much - & considered them property which they can give away - why get married in the first place? For sex? Don't you imagine that the same sort of man who feels his wife is property & would humiliate her by writing a letter "offering" her to a complete stranger (indeed, one who's apparently desperate enough to advertise for a spouse) would find it not at all a problem to have sex with a prostitute, bringing home all manner of sexually-transmitted diseases?

Fuck them, & fuck men who think of women this way.

The category, by the way, is "men vs. women jokes." The Good Old Days.

In the interest of fairness, here's the good A Joke A Day, which I must've heard at least ten years ago, & I've edited it somewhat so it's actually told well:

A driver, speeding down the highway, was pulled over by the Highway Patrol. This officer was young & had about six weeks on the job.

The officer approached the driver’s window & said, "License & registration, please."

The driver noticed the officer was a rookie. "I'm sorry, officer," the driver said, "I no longer have a license. I lost it as a result of too many DUIs."

Taken aback, the officer said,"Then can I see your registration?"

The driver replied, "Um, all right, but it's not my car - I stole it about an hour ago. Still, I think I saw it in the glove compartment when I put my gun in there."

"A gun? In your glove compartment?" The officer took a step back.

The driver sighed. "Yes, officer. I had to kill the woman who owned the car before I stuffed her in the trunk."

The officer drew his gun on the man & said, "Do not make a move." The driver complied while the officer called for back-up. He was a bit hysterical.

Ten minutes later the driver is surrounded by Highway Patrol officers & local cops. A police detective approaches the man & says, "I'll need to see your license & registration."

As the driver slowly reached above his visor & pulled down his license & registration.

The detective looked them over; they checked out. He said, "May I look into your glove compartment, sir?"

The driver agreed. The detective slowly looked into it. There was no gun.

"Sir," the detective said, "please open your trunk."

The driver complied. The detective checked it - there was no body in it.

Puzzled, the detective approached the driver. He said, "Sir, I am confused. The officer who pulled you over reported that you did not have a license or registration, that you were driving a stolen vehicle, that there was a gun in the glove compartment, & that there was a dead body in the trunk."

The driver looked at the detective & said, "Yeah & I'll bet he told you I was speeding, too."

Not A Show About Nothing

But a show about zero. That's the number zero. The one that's the average of -1 & 1. Not nothing. A show about nothing would be somewhat different. Though people do use the word "zero" to mean "nothing." This is a show about the integer zero. Its history, its lives, its loves, its hopes & dreams, its crimes & its redemption. The lost years it spent in exile, the great years when it returned. Something like that.

More or less.

The zero songs are below in an unnumbered list. It may be the only unnumbered list which contains many zeroes. The show is nestled happily at http://www.selfhelpradio.net. You can listen to part one here & you can listen to part two here. What is in the two parts is listed below.

(part one)

"My Hero, Zero" Bob Dorough _Schoolhouse Rock: Multiplication Rock_
"The Mighty Zero" Meat Puppets _Mirage_
"3, 2, 1 Zero" Les Sheriff _Punk En France_

"I Got A Zero" The Fantastics _This Is My Wedding Day 7"_
"I Was Zero" Sage Francis _Li(f)e_
"Zero Zero Zero!" Sam Phillips _Omnipop_
"This Is Zero" TV 21 _A Thin Red Line_
"Less Than Zero" Elvis Costello _My Aim Is True_

"Zero Hour" The Plimsouls _DIY: Shake It Up! American Power Pop II (1978-80)_
"Ground Zero" Shirts _Street Light Shine_
"Back To Zero Now" Tommy Keene _The Real Underground_

(part two)

"Zero Degrees" Drag City Super Session _Tramps, Traitors & Little Devils_
"Zero" Deathray _Deathray_
"Saved By Zero" The Fixx _Reach The Beach_

"Zero G" Willesden Dodgers _First Base_
"Zero As A Limit" Human League _Reproduction_
"A Day Called Zero" The Sugarcubes _Here Today, Tomorrow, Next Week!_
"Absolute Zero" My Favorite _Love At Absolute Zero_

"Super Zero" Linda Draper _Little Darla Has A Treat For You, Vol. 23: Summer 2005_
"What I Learned About Zero" Capsules _Someone For Everyone_

Whither Zero?

Yes, I am back from my brief visit to Dallas, in which I got to see many members of my family, I got to meet my niece's new sprog (a great-nephew) & saw some old friends who were kind enough to interrupt their lives to see me.

But I love eating food so I am not going to talk about the trip, or tomorrow's Self Help Radio (for which I am going to be ill-prepared) but instead make three recommendations.

One, if you're anywhere near a Z Pizza chain (there's one in the suburb three times removed from Dallas called Flower Mound) (I kinda wish I could've seen the flower mound there, I might have actually liked the place) you should enjoy their vegan pizza. It's awesome. We had it in Columbus but it's too far away from us these days. I wish there were one nearby - the vegan pizza at the local Mellow Mushroom is nowhere near as good.

Two, there's a lovely vegan Chinese place called Suma Veggie Cafe that has the most awesome vegan buffet ever. I can't recommend it highly enough. Oh. My. God. It's a reason to visit Dallas. When all other reasons suck. (Ignore the negative Yelp reviews. They don't know what they're talking about.)

Three, okay, the best reason to visit Dallas is for the best Ethiopian restaurant I've ever been to, which is called Lalibela, a place so great I named my car after it. (I finally got to tell them that - they were very flattered.) I don't eat meat so I can't speak to the carnivore dishes, but all the vegetarian stuff is so wonderful. I ate there last night & am still full.

Yeah, so Self Help Radio is about the number zero tomorrow. It's on at 7:30 am Monday on 88.1 fm in Lexington & all over at the world at wrfl dot fm & of course archived later on the Self Help Radio website. Do listen! Zero will be your hero!

Absence Makes The Heart Grow Bloodier

I will be visiting my momsie in Dallas for the next three days so I have to apologize for three things:

1) I may not be posting anything here. I'd be more concerned if I thought you cared. Since I know you don't, I'm still sorry. I do try to be consistent, even if I'm consistently inconsistent.

2) I may actually be posting things here. Who knows? It may be late, in a hotel room that only gets Fox News on the television, & I may have nothing to say. Sorry about that in advance.

3) Monday's show, which is about the number zero, may get zero preparation. That may seem appropriate but I would feel pretty awful if that were the case. My apologies in advance if the show sucks.

It's humorous, though. It's been muggy here in Lexington, & has gotten up into the mid-90s, but it's in no way as awful as Dallas. Here's the forecast:

Thursday: high of 99 degrees
Friday: high of 99 degrees
Saturday: high of 101 degrees

Here's Lexington for the next few days:

Thursday: high of 85 degrees
Friday: high of 86 degrees
Saturday: high of 86 degrees

There really is a difference. What a time to go see fambly!

Spy World

This blog entry about today's Self Help Radio is in code. Please refer to your Self Help Radio Spy Decoder Kit which I hope you've already sent your box-tops in to receive. If you haven't, please eat more Self Help Radio Brand Super Sugar Marbles cereal & then hurry back as this note will self-destruct in five minutes.

Defying the KGB, the CIA, the FBI, MI6, the Inspector Closeau Society (I imagine that's what the French call their international espionage agency), Interpol, SHIELD, Checkmate, & any other number of national, international, extraterrestrial & fictional spy organizations, Self Help Radio proudly broadcast its devastating expose of the world of espionage. No one was safe! Moles were exposed! Duplicitous deals were uncovered! It was worse than Wikileaks!

Actually, I just played a lot of songs about secret agents & stuff. The songs I played are below. The show is back at headquarters with Miss Moneypenny at self help radio dot net. It is divided in two parts & you must have the proper clearance to listen to both. Part one is at planning; while part two is at execution.

Remember, if you get caught listening to this show, I will deny I ever made it. But thanks for listening anyway!

(part one)
"Sooperspy" Madd Inc. _The Ikon Records Story_
"Espionage" Los Straitjackets _¡Viva Los Straitjackets!_
"I'm A Double Naught Spy" Perpetuated Spirits Of Turpentine _Aliens, Psychos & Wild Things Vol. 3_

"The James Bond Theme (Brian Gearwhore & Alex Xenophon Remix)" Leroy Holmes _Electro Lounge: Electronic Excursions In Hi-Fi Stereo_
"Sock It To 'Em JB" Rex Garvin _Sock It To 'Em Soul: 60s Club Soul Classics_
"Mission Impossible" James Taylor Quartet _Acid Jazz Movie & TV Themes_
"I Spy (For The FBI)" Luther Ingram & The G-Men _Foxy Devil 7"_
"Number One Spy" Syd Dale _Cinemaphonic Soul Punch - A Selection Of British Library Music 1970-1976_

"Agnes" Mike Russo _Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From The Golden Age_
"Man From U.N.C.L.E./The Spies" Al Caiola _Ultra-Lounge, Vol. 13: TV Town_
"Secret Agent Man" Johnny Rivers _The Best Of Johnny Rivers_

(part two)
"Theme From Get Smart" Hugo Montenegro _Come Spy With Me_
"Secret Agent Man" Devo _Duty Now For The Future_
"Model Spy" Cinerama _This Is Cinerama_

"Je Serai Espionne" Baxendale _You Will Have Your Revenge_
"The Avengers" The Laurie Johnson Orchestra _The Avengers & Other Top Sixties TV Themes_
"Agent Double-0-Soul" Edwin Starr _Soul Master_
"Spy In The Lounge" Dusty Trails _Dusty Trails_
"The Last Of The Secret Agents" The Revillos _Wireless Recordings_
"Spy School Graduation Theme" Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet _Sport Fishin'_

"I Spy" Beat Happening _1983-1985_
"I Spy" Earle Hagen _Ultra Lounge Vol. 7: The Crime Scene_
"Russian Spy & I" Hunters _Pebbles Volume 25: The Continent Lashes Back - Holland, Part 3_
"My Baby Loves The Secret Agent" Detroit Cobras _Seven Easy Pieces_
"Spy Chase" Bruno Nicolai _Easy Tempo Vol. 7_

Whither Espionage?

Can I say at the outset that this blog entry is a cheat? I didn't have time to write it on Sunday, so I am writing it very early Monday morning, though I am pre-dating it so it appears to have been written on Sunday. You might never have actually known, since you probably don't even read this blog, but I had to confess. I'd make a terrible spy.

I was more charmed when I was a kid by superheroes than spies, although I guess I thought James Bond was pretty cool, & enjoyed cheesey sixties spy stuff when I saw it in repeats on the TV. I took everything like that very seriously, & in ninth grade I wrote the first few chapters of a "spy book" in which I & my nerdy friends were all characters. One of those friends - we were probably never friends, but I suppose he tolerated me - was downright offended by my characterization of him, though I thought I was being flattering. Nerds! I swear.

I do think his code name was "Egghead." Tee hee.

I wrote it in pencil & I still have it somewhere, though time has smudged it a lot. I don't really want to reread it. I am happy to have the past fade away as most of it is meant to do.

Um, I'm supposed to be talking about espionage. I'm not much of an expert on it. I prefer mystery novels to spy novels, & much of the tongue in cheek of the Bond movies or the Avengers feels very dated to me now, although, as I mentioned above, as a child it wasn't kitschy or silly to me, I took it very seriously. Perhaps that's why I find the music so compelling - I'm not looking back with a smirk but taking it seriously.

I don't know. Hey, do you know the best way to find out if the FBI has a file on you?

Preface To Espionage: The Spy Movie Who Loved Me

As always, Self Help Radio is a little late in the game, which is following the celebration of cheesy spy movies, which are movies made in the sixties on the heels of the James Bond success, which culminated in the late nineties/early aughts with the spoofs with the Saturday Night Live people that I confess I never saw. Also at the time, David Gedge of the Wedding Present made a couple of records as "Cinerama" which attempted to incorporate the production music sounds of the sixties & seventies into a more poppy milieu. Indeed, even at old KOOP radio, there was a show called - er - I've forgotten it now! - I know I subbed it - I'll have to look it up - Cinemaphonics that's it! - which is also the name of one or two of those collections of production music - which played nothing but music in that vein, & was pretty popular.

& now, too many years later, Self Help Radio does a show about espionage.

I guess it's not that bad. I could be doing a show about singing cowboys. Sixty years after their heyday.

This spring I did manage to watch (or re-watch) the first three Sean Connery James Bond movies. I had intended to watch them all in a row, but something distracted me. Probably something I hadn't seen before. I understand their charms. I will try to convey some of their charms in the radio show. But you won't get to see all the gadgets I will have with me. Not on the radio you won't.

Top Celebrities From Garland, Texas

Rats, I see I still haven't made the list of Top 5 Celebrities From Garland, Texas, which is a shame not only because I'm not at all a celebrity, but unlike Celebrity No. 5, who is called "Leann Rimes" - someone I've never heard of - as well as Celebrity No. 1, Mike Judge, whom I have heard of - unlike both of them I was actually born in Garland.

Indeed, though it's apparently devoted to the "Number 1 Celebrity From Garland," Mike Judge's wikipedia page doesn't even mention the city of Garland at all.

The other three, one a performer in a country music band I've never heard of, one a basketball player with an awesome nickname (also someone I've never heard of), & the last an American sitcom star from the 80's, all seem to have been born in Garland & thank the gravelly-voice lord they made it out of there.

I'm a little surprised, actually, at how few famous people have come from what I have often referred to as "the armpit of the Metroplex." There are a lot of people there. But maybe I ought not be surprised. It seems a wonder that people ever make it out of that place. My mother's been trapped there since the early 1950s. Most of my siblings have hardly been anywhere else. It frankly takes an extraordinary amount of energy to reach escape velocity from Garland's gravitational pull.

Have you ever heard how Douglas Adams advises one in the art of flying? He says, "There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground & miss." To miss the ground, one must be distracted at the moment before one hits. That seems to have been my way of getting out of Garland. I was caught up in the whole "go to college after high school" business & didn't notice I was leaving the city forever.

To be the non-celebrity I am justly not celebrated for today!

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Three

I've written a few times on this blog about the inane "A Joke A Day" email service (I'm sure there's more than one) which I would often subscribe to for email accounts that, back in the day, were free but which I never used. Often those email accounts would expire if you didn't have email coming to them, but because I thought it was (at least initially) funny to have email accounts at startrekonline.com & muslimonline.com (both sites, & my email addresses, are long defunct), I'd sign up for an account & then subscribe to the A Joke A Day service. One account I use still gets them, & I rarely read them, but am too lazy to unsubscribe. I recently thought, what if I actually saved them, then featured what I consider the best, or funniest, or worst, or most notable, or simply something to talk about once a week? & so I shall.

Occasionally, on our dog walks, I tell my love Magda one of the A Joke A Days that I have recently received. But I realized something when I was trying to relate a recent A Joke A Day - I almost always have to rephrase - almost reconstruct - the joke from the version in the A Joke A Day email. Take this one, for example, which was Monday's A Joke A Day:

A lawyer was cross-examining the doctor about whether or not he had checked the pulse of the deceased before he signed the death certificate. "No," the doctor said. "I did not check his pulse." "& did you listen for a heartbeat?" asked the lawyer. "No I did not," the doctor said. "So," said the lawyer, "when you signed the death certificate, you had not taken steps to make sure he was dead." The doctor said, "Well, let me put it this way. The man's brain was in a jar on my desk but, for all I know, he could be out practicing law somewhere."

When you read that, don't you get the impression there's actually a somewhat decent joke in there somewhere?

Might that mean that the A Joke A Day folks could employ some decent editors? I suppose they might, if the whole site - the whole operation - weren't treated as an afterthought.

As an update from last week's A Joke A Day, in which the site which tries so hard not to offend managed to let an offensive slur for Asians & Pacific Islanders slip through: I did write the info address on the site & mention the racial slur, but so far, a week later, I have received no response. I did try to find the joke on their website, but it's not easy to navigate & a search for key phrases found nothing. Since the site is entirely user-created (ie, they rely on submissions for content) might they have banished a jokester on my complaint? I wish!

By the way, if you really want to see how far they - a purveyor of humor, you understand - try so hard not to offend, you should see the "categories" they've invented to make sure their jokes are "politically correct" & "clean." George Carlin is rolling his eyes in his grave.

Rat-A-Tat-Tat America!

Happy Independence Day! Self Help Radio has never landed on July 4th on the calendar before, so of course I had to do a show about America. Though there are some songs about the Fourth of July too. & some girls in Greenville, Texas, singing the Star-Spangled Banner in a way that might not please your ears.

There are fireworks exploding all around right now, & my pets think we've moved to Iraq, so I'd better put this up before the day is done & we're no longer independent. The show is celebrating its freedom at Self Help Radio on the web, which I would call the Website of the Free except I have to pay for it. The show is divided into two parts (no, not "American" & "The Rest Of The World," although maybe next time...) with part one right here & part two right over here. The songs I played & which part they're in are below. Remember to listen from a safe distance! Self Help Radio can explode at any moment.

Okay, probably not.

(part one)
"Fireworks" Grady Tate _Schoolhouse Rock: America Rock_
"Three Dates" Jon Stewart _The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America: The Book_

"Yankee Doodle Dandy" James Cagney _100 Years Of Cinema: 40 Classic Performances_
"Fourth Of July" Galaxie 500 _This Is Our Music_
"Fourth Day Of July" The Washington Squares _Fair & Square_
"4th Of July" X _See How We Are_

"Democracy" Leonard Cohen _The Future_
"The Star Spangled Banner" Gospel Girls Of Greenville, TX _Jesus Made Me Do It, Vol. 2_
"Star-Spangled Banner" Culturcide _Tacky Souvenirs Of Pre-Revolutionary America_
"An Open Letter To The Youth Of America" Conception Corporation _Complete Conception_

(part two)
"I Am A Real American" Rodd Keith _I Died Today_
"American Eagle" Bruce Haack _Listen Compute Rock Home: The Best Of Dimension 5_

"This Land Is Your Land" Woody Guthrie _This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Volume 1_
"Power & The Glory" Phil Ochs _All The News That's Fit To Sing_
"The Great Compromise" John Prine _Great Days_
"Coming To America" Me First & The Gimme Gimmes _Have Another Ball_
"Rockin' In The Free World" Neil Young _Freedom_
"America Is" Violent Femmes _Add It Up (1981-1993)_

"America" Fast & Dirty _Live From Our Pants_
"That's America" Bruce McCulloch _Shame-Based Man_
"America The Beautiful" Ray Charles _Genius Of Soul_
"God Bless America" Peter Donner _The Talent Show_

Whither America?

I've probably mentioned this before, but in the many years I've done Self Help Radio, I've not received a lot of constructive criticism. (Does someone calling me during the show & screaming YOU SUCK!! into the phone count as "constructive criticism"? Then maybe I've received a lot of it...) But during one of my previous radio station's peer evaluation processes I did get some nice comments from someone who didn't do a music show & who seemed actually quite puzzled about one aspect of the show, which was:

The reviewer didn't understand why I did the themes I did when I did the themes I did.

In other words, why do a show about cheese on April 4th? Is that National Cheese Day? (Isn't every day National Cheese Day? No? Call your Member Of Congress today!)

Initially that bothered me, but upon reflection I understood her unhappiness. Most radio shows busted out the themes only on holidays, like Christmas or Halloween, or on anniversaries like birthdays or deathdays. The arbitrary quality of the show probably has turned folks off now & then.

In other words, the raison d'etre of Self Help Radio troubled the reviewer.

I think about that review on weeks like this one, when my show happily falls on a big-time national holiday. No confusion here! It's the first time Self Help Radio has fallen on the fourth of July, so it would be dumb not to do a show about America.

So let's do it. Tomorrow morning at 7:30 am on 88.1 fm WRFL, available online at wrfl dot fm. I might make it through the day & put the show up on the Self Help Radio website - but you'll have to check to see. I may have Firework Fatigue.

Preface To America: Those Thirteen Colonies

That's a dumb joke, isn't it. The "preface" to America is the colonies from which it rose. Har har.

A long preface, though. Almost as long as we've been a bona fide country. Like, nearly two hundred years. & we're really only about 222 years old.

I wonder how many people think that the United States, like Yankee Doodle, was born on the fourth of July?

Well, it wasn't. The colonies declared their independence from England & King George The Fatty on that day. We celebrate that.

Though Self Help Radio will be celebrating America, not independence. So maybe I thought it America's birthday.

Oh well.

Self Help Radio Extra June In July

Oops, I forgot to mention yesterday (which was the last day of June) that I actually managed to put together a Self Help Radio Extra mix (which I forgot to do in May) but it's still there even though it's the first day of July.

Also, this month's (last month's) Self Help Radio Extra is kind of a repeat of an actual former Self Help Radio show, which aired on October 5, 2007, & was a tribute to Marc Bolan & T Rex. (You can see the playlist here.) It's basically just T Rex covers with a couple of songs that celebrate Marc Bolan & his work. I've added I think nine new covers &/or songs from the original mix, so it's not entirely a repeat. Let's call it an update.

The show is available on the Self Help Radio Extra page. It's under eighty minutes so it can fit on a compact disc, if you still use them, but it's also an mp3 so you can put it wherever you can put mp3s, which is anywhere. Oh, & it's all music, so you don't have to hear me jabber on about how much I love Marc Bolan.

Although if you do want to know how much I love him, I did do an entire radio show in tribute to him, plus this mix, plus I named my male cat after him. That's him in the picture on this page. Like Marc Bolan, my cat Bolan loves to boogie.

Below is the list of songs you can hear. I hope you enjoy!

Self Help Radio Extra June 2011: T Rexstacy

"Gonna Listen To T. Rex (All Night Long)" Burnt Ones _Black Teeth & Golden Tongues_
"Children Of The Revolution" Neon Indian _Children Of The Revolution_
"The Slider" Gavin Friday from _Shag Tobacco_
"Cosmic Dancer" Idle Hands _The Heart We Broke On The Way To The Show_
"Mambo Sun" Bongos from _Drums Along The Hudson_
"Telegram Sam" Bauhaus from _In The Flat Field_
"Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart" Ty Segall _Ty Rex_
"Marc" Louis XIV _Illegal Tender EP_
"Life's A Gas" Shockabilly _Vietnam/Heaven_
"Hot Love" Elf Power from _Nothing's Going To Happen_
"20th Century Boy" Three Johns from _Live In Chicago_
"Rip Off" Dim Stars _Dim Stars_
"Celebrate Summer" Paybacks from _Harder & Harder_
"Jeepster" Sex Clark Five _Strum & Drum_
"Solid Gold Easy Action" Department S _Is Vic There?_
"Baby Strange" Big Star from _Nobody Can Dance_
"Baby Boomerang" Shins from _House Full Of Friends_
"Let Darkness Fall" Licorice Roots _Licorice Roots Orchestra_
"Get It On" Kramer _Great Jewish Music: Marc Bolan_
"Buick MacKane" Nikki Sudden _Groove_
"Ballrooms Of Mars" Richard Barone _Between Heaven & Cello_
"Mystic Lady" Lloyd Cole _Morning Is Broken_
"By The Light Of A Magical Moon" Mars Arizona _Hello Cruel World_
"Light Of Love" Molotov Combo _Resurrection Of The Warlock_

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Two

I've written a few times on this blog about the inane "A Joke A Day" email service (I'm sure there's more than one) which I would often subscribe to for email accounts that, back in the day, were free but which I never used. Often those email accounts would expire if you didn't have email coming to them, but because I thought it was (at least initially) funny to have email accounts at startrekonline.com & muslimonline.com (both sites, & my email addresses, are long defunct), I'd sign up for an account & then subscribe to the A Joke A Day service. One account I use still gets them, & I rarely read them, but am too lazy to unsubscribe. I recently thought, what if I actually saved them, then featured what I consider the best, or funniest, or worst, or most notable, or simply something to talk about once a week? & so I shall.

But I'm not sure how long I'll be able to sustain a "series" like this, since the average A Joke A Day is pretty lame. Moreover, unlike most humor, it tries so desperately hard not to offend.

Here's the A Joke A Day I got yesterday, which is a perfect example of two really dumb aspects of the A Joke A Day joke, one of which is the desire not to offend:

A man with a wooden eye was very sensitive about his eye for fear of people making fun of him. One day this man decides to go out & have some fun. So he goes to a bar & orders a beer. Then, out of the corner of his eye he sees a woman with a flat face. He thinks,” Well, she wouldn't make fun of me because she would understand how I feel." So he finally gathers up the courage to talk to her, he goes over & asks her, “Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?" & the woman answers, “Would I!!!" (Wood Eye) The man, obviously offended, screams, "Flat face!!!" & storms out of the bar.

Have you ever heard anyone described as having a "flat face"? I haven't, & when I googled the term, I got first & foremost www.flatfacefingerboards.com, a website for (it says) "all your fingerboard needs," & this definition from the Urban Dictionary: "Racial slur aimed at Asians & Pacific Islanders."

This may undercut my point - it certainly seems offensive - but I don't think it's a common term, & I don't think that the editors of the A Joke A Day mailing list knew it was anything but a euphemism for the word they really should have used, which is the deeply offensive term "ugly."

(By the way, according to this article, humans all have flat faces compared to the apes from which we evolved.)

I don't know why they didn't use the word ugly, but then again I don't know why teachers these days refuse to fail kids. There are surely ugly people, & being one myself, I think it's fine to note such things. I hope I have qualities that balance my lack of physical attractiveness, just as I'm sure some very pretty people are as shallow as a petri dish. The word "ugly" would not offend me, & I don't think it would offend most self-aware ugly people.

(I was just thinking I should send them an email about the "flat face" thing. Do you think they'd issue an apology?)

The other aspect is the incredible condescension they display when telling these jokes. The set-up is utterly ridiculous - who has wooden eyes? Dolls, I suppose, but no one else. But I understand the hoops a joke must go through to get to its pun. However, the average A Joke A Day so distrusts the intelligence of its reader - who, you know, has subscribed to a joke that it needs to make perfectly clear - in the middle of the joke - its painfully obvious pun. I repeat:

“Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?" & the woman answers, “Would I!!!" (Wood Eye)

I confess the A Joke A Day compilers don't always do that - if the pun is a homonym, for example, they'll simply use the appropriate spellings - like if someone in the joke says "right" but the listener hears "write," they'll use the spelling the speaker understands. But in a situation like the one above, they will usually (& literally) spell it out. Because they imagine their average subscriber is dumb as dirt.

Which we may be. Since we might be offended by the term "ugly."

Did You Remember To Listen?

As alcohol & age dull my faulty memory, I take the time to go on the radio to play songs about remembering & also to remind you that your memories are nowhere nearly as accurate as you think they are. I can't even say for certain that I remember doing that this morning on the radio, even with a recording. My brain operates according to rules that I don't remember agreeing to.

In case you forgot to listen, the show (which frankly wasn't all that memorable) is now available for your listening pleasure when & if you remember to listen at the show's website. I remembered to divide it into two parts, & part one is where this link leads you while I think I put part two behind this link. I may forget before I finish writing this, but if I remember, the songs contained in both parts will be listed below.

(part one)

"I Remember, I Remember (Thomas Hood)" Tim Pigott-Smith _Poetry Please: The Anniversary Edition_
"Remember" Durutti Column _Someone Else's Party_

"Remember" Air _Moon Safari_
"Do You Remember?" Doktor Cosmos _Cocktail_
"Remember?" Lali Puna _Our Inventions_
"Remember Me" Rita Pavone _Hey! Look What I Found! Vol. 9_
"Remember (Walking In The Sand)" Shangri-Las _The Shangri-Las & The '60s Girl Group Garage Sound_
"I'll Remember" The Kinks _Face To Face_

"I Forgot To Remember To Forget" Elvis Presley _The Sun Sessions CD_
"Something To Remember You By" The Gentlemen _Chicken Shack Boogie, Vol. 6_
"I've Got Dreams To Remember" Otis Redding _The Otis Redding Story 1962-1967_
"Remember When" The Four Tops _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 8_
"Remember Who You Are" Sly & The Family Stone _Back On The Right Track_

(part two)
"Dates To Remember" Gary Owen _Put Your Head On My Finger_

"Remember" John Lennon _Plastic Ono Band_
"Do You Remember" Tyrannosaurus Rex _The Definitive Tyrannosaurus Rex_
"I Remember You" The Ramones _Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology_
"Remember Me" British Sea Power _The Decline Of British Sea Power_
"Remember (Christina Rossetti)" Diana Quick _Poetry Please: The Anniversary Edition_
"You Must Please Remember" Morrissey _Dagenham Dave_

"Do You Remember" Talulah Gosh _Backwash_
"I Remember" The Visitors _Miss_
"Remember" The Boyfriends _The Boyfriends_
"Remember Me To Her" St. Christopher _Dig Deep, Brother (1984-1990)_
"Sometimes I Remember" Pernice Brothers _Yours Mine & Ours_
"Remember Me, Remember U" Teach Me Tiger _Thirty Forty Fives Vol. 1_

Whither Remembering?

Memories fade & are usually unreliable. Eyewitness accounts are often widely different. Yet we place a huge importance on the process of remembering, & sharing memories - or doing things that create shared memories - is one thing humans enjoy most.

There's a wonderful word, which is a whole other theme, but I can talk about it here, which is "nostalgia," which illustrates the point I am meandering about above very well - it's a yearning, a longing for days past, which many folks remember as much better. A perfect example, which Bill Maher often points out, is people in the United States who wish for the "better days" of the 1950s or before - all the while forgetting (or maybe not?) that there were a great number of Americans back then who were treated as second-class citizens & not allowed basic rights.

(As I wrote that, I realized I could have meant both African-Americans & women!)

As someone who, when his brain was working perfectly fine, used to worry about losing memories, about not being able to remember my life in all its dreary minute detail, I would now horrify the younger me by not caring very much. I lose words when I talk, I have forgotten whole swaths of time, & it doesn't bother me as much as it should. & I know why - it's because I understand that memory itself is unreliable.

I often say - well, let me illustrate what I was going to say with a story. An old roommate was reminiscing living with me about fifteen or twenty years ago. He said, "What I remember most is that you never threw away shampoo bottles - there were always half a dozen nearly empty shampoo bottles around."

I remember no such thing, but that doesn't mean I remember differently. It could certainly be true. So I said what I often say these days when I don't have memories that align with the memories of other people - I said, "It certainly sounds like something I'd do."

You might not remember, but Self Help Radio's show about remembering is on tomorrow morning (that's Monday the 27th) at 7:30 am on the 88.1 fm frequency in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm - but if you do forget to remember, it'll be put on the Self Help Radio website at self help radio dot net. I always remember to do that.

Preface To Remember...: You Remember Wrong

It's touching how much humans rely upon their memories, but it's sad how memories betray us. I recently counseled my sister, who was feeling old & thinking she couldn't remember dumb shit from her past, that it didn't really matter, since she probably didn't remember them the way they actually happened anyway. It still seems a little strange for me to feel this way, since I used to worry in my youth about forgetting everything that happened to me, & kept a kind of diary for some time in early adulthood. (The diary is totally boring & useless now, by the way, since I often will refer to people that I honestly can't remember, & usually by their first names, which is maddeningly unhelpful.)

I don't worry about forgetting thing so much anymore. Everything I read about the human brain suggests that when we do remember, we remember a lot of our lives incorrectly. We remember, mostly, to protect ourselves. I recently became reacquainted with someone from my past & was honestly surprised that he had completely remade his past, when he had done some awful things, into a sort of sad tableau wherein people had hurt him for indiscriminate reasons. I don't think he was lying, I think he was utterly sincere. & he seemed downright puzzled that some folks from that time had any hostility toward him.

I flatter myself that I am somewhat self-aware, & so I imagine that I do the same things. In fact, I completely understand that it's not even a conscious choice, that our brains have evolved in such a way to try, at the very least, to make sure we're the heroes of our lives or, failing that, that we at least hold on to some modicum of sanity in a narrative that doesn't make fill us with complete self-loathing. How else could we live with some of the things we know we're capable of?

There are other ways our brain fucks with us of course, but the way our memory betrays us seems especially poignant to me.

The Self Help Radio iPhone App

Does not exist.

But if it did, what would it do?

I'd imagine it would be connected with some over-the-top database - requiring me to pay exorbitant fees to hated record companies - that would match your idea for a "theme" to a series of songs that you could download &/or play.

I think I would probably try to block more mainstream songs, not because I would not necessarily play them on the show, but just out of spite. Does Sony really need more money? Really?

I'd probably also have to record lots of meaningless factoids so you could enter a "theme" into the app &, when available, there'd be my tired voice saying something like, "It's a fungus so it's not really a plant or an animal."

(I've actually done a Self Help Radio about mushrooms, so I got to play songs about fungus. Push the button & hear "Slender Fungus" by Tones On Tail!)

What else? I'm new to the whole "app" thing, having no iPhone & only recently getting a secondhand iPad from my wife, who had no use for it.

I suppose there'd be the obligatory pictures of beagles. There can never been enough pictures of beagles.

But what else? Would there be no other options for the Self Help Radio iPhone app?

Then it's a good thing it doesn't exist.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode One

I've written a few times on this blog about the inane "A Joke A Day" email service (I'm sure there's more than one) which I would often subscribe to for email accounts that, back in the day, were free but which I never used. Often those email accounts would expire if you didn't have email coming to them, but because I thought it was (at least initially) funny to have email accounts at startrekonline.com & muslimonline.com (both sites, & my email addresses, are long defunct), I'd sign up for an account & then subscribe to the A Joke A Day service. One account I use still gets them, & I rarely read them, but am too lazy to unsubscribe. I recently thought, what if I actually saved them, then featured what I consider the best, or funniest, or worst, or most notable, or simply something to talk about once a week? & so I shall.

The most common A Joke A Day is pretty lame. You've probably heard it before, & I confess to never actually laughing at any A Joke A Day. But this A Joke A Day, from Wednesday the 22nd, is based on a pretty funny pun, but seemed exceptionally clumsy in its execution - & it was familiar:

"When Mozart passed away, he was buried in a churchyard.

"A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery & heard some strange noises coming from the area where Mozart was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran & got the priest to come & listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave & heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran & got the town magistrate.

"When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, & said, 'Ah, yes, that's Mozart's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards.'

"He listened a while longer, & said, 'There's the Eighth Symphony, And it's backwards, too. Most puzzling.'

"So the magistrate kept listening; 'There's the Seventh... the Sixth...the Fifth...'

"Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up & announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery. 'My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Mozart decomposing.'"

I'm not a classical music maven but I do know that the composer most associated with nine symphonies isn't Mozart (who actually composed over forty of them) but Beethoven. I know for the sake of the joke it's just important it's a classical music composer that you recognize, but this does seem especially lazy.

The other thing is, I laughed at this joke the first time I saw it, which happened to be in a The Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson:



Suffice it to say, the economy of style Larson had to use makes the pun more impressive, & doesn't require the lengthy set-up. It also doesn't require the weird notion that music played backwards is somehow music returning to its source - & you know, symphonies are played with full orchestras, so you had an prodigious amount of sound returning into the dead composer's head.

(Or so I assume. The joke suggests the music is faint, but I can't imagine it was coming from dead Mozart.)

I am over-analyzing but I'll be doing that on Thursdays from now on. It's fun (for me) to pick apart why something isn't terribly funny. This joke, which probably predates the The Far Side cartoon, is as crumbly & decaying as Mozart in his grave, but there's something I will say at the very end which I find interesting, since many of the A Joke A Day jokes have, like their audience, I suppose, a vague American religiosity & positivity that undermines the best humor's cynical, sarcastic & antisocial punch, & it's this:

You've got a dead dude, & music's coming from his grave, but the town's paid expert on spiritual matters, the priest, is not only "frightened" by the noise coming from the grave - his area of expertise - but he actually runs to the town's secular authority, the magistrate - who handily solves the problem after "listening for a moment." Is this supposed to be a mild criticism of the uselessness of religious folks, who really don't (& frankly can't) know more about death than anyone else? Or maybe it was subconscious?

Even if it's the latter, it makes the joke (for me) better than your average A Joke A Day.

A Trip To The Suburbs

elf Help Radio left the big city to visit the suburbs this week, & got a little lost. All the houses look the same! I went to the same convenience store THREE TIMES! I forgot that I grew up in the suburbs. Or maybe I'm pretending I forgot?

The suburbs have their charms, but mostly the music I found was somewhat critical. You can be the judge. The entire suburban show exists in the exurbs called the Self Help Radio website. I have divided the show in half, like a classic two-car garage, & part one is here under all this crap from last Christmas while part two is over near the lawnmower I think. If you forget to close the garage doors before you leave, don't worry - a nice police officer will come to the door to tell us late at night.

The songs in each part are below. Thanks for listening! I have to drive back to the city now.

(part one)
"Sweet Suburbia" Skids _Dunfermline_
"The Sounds Of The Suburbs" The Members _Sound Of The Suburbs: A Collection Of The Members' Finest Moments_

"Surburbia" Pet Shop Boys _Please_
"Suburban Homeboy" Sparks _Lil' Beethoven_
"City & Suburban" Always _Looking For Mr. Wright_
"The Suburb In Between" The Mabels _The Closest People_
"If Not Now..." The Guild League _Speak Up_

"Rockin' The Suburbs (feat. William Shatner)" Ben Folds _Over The Hedge_
"In The Suburbs" Let's Wrestle _Nursing Home_
"Suburban Home" Descendents _Milo Goes To College_

(part two)
"Suburbs" Junior Achiever _All The Little Letdowns_
"Suburban Rock Dolls" The Chubbies _Your Favourite Everything_

"The Suburbs Are Killing Us" My Favorite _The Happiest Days Of Our Lives_
"Suburban Relapse (John Peel Session)" Siouxsie & The Banshees _The Scream_
"Suburban Family Lament" Ruth Copeland _Invictus/Hot Wax Grooves & Breaks_
"Lost In The Supermarket" The Clash _Lost In The Supermarket_
"Suburban Dogs" Real Estate _Real Estate_

"Suburban Girls" The Commercials _Compare & Decide_
"Death In The Suburbs" The Diodes _Tired Of Waking Up Tired_
"Suburban Life" The Novas _Trip In Tyme Vol. 5_

Whither The Suburbs?

Suburbs may require their own haikus.

Suburbs have their own ideas of cheese.

Suburban living has its own special brand of angst.

& of course there's husband- & wife-swapping.

It took a while, but eventually there was even suburban rock music.

Whatever is happening with suburban (aka "white") flight?

An online rhyming dictionary found "no perfect rhymes" for suburb, although some fine imperfect ones exist. For example, this, from the Lucksmiths:

"A storm rolls across the suburbs
& the streets are as empty as the cupboards."

Preface To The Suburbs: Where You From?

According to a Pew Research Center poll from 2008, "more than six-in-ten adults (63%) have moved to a new community at least once in their lives, while 37% have never left their hometowns."

There's more: "The most rooted region" is the Midwest - 46% of adult residents there have spent their entire lives in one community. The West is the "least rooted" - 30% have stayed in their hometown. Where I'm from, the South (if you consider Texas the South, & many Texans do) is 36%, while the East is 38%.

I live in the Midwest now, & it does seem like a lot of the people I meet are from Lexington. However, the poll data says that Texas is a much more "sticky" state - more people who were born there still live there (75%) than people in Kentucky (62%).

More more: 77% of people who went to college & graduated have moved around, while 56% of those who just finished high school or less stayed in their same communities.

Might it be because one often goes away to college & therefore realize there is more out there? There's a reason the word provincial has the word "province" in it.

I dunno. The poll allowed for "stayers" to have the exemption of military duty & college, so some people just really love their hometowns.

The study, which is now three years old, says that the American population is settling down - only 11% of respondents had moved in the last year, which is the lowest amount since researchers started tracking that data in the 1940s. But that was right before the The Great Recession started - I believe more Americans are moving now.

I don't have any data to back that up, though!

Being An Oblate Spheroid...

I was reading about Hipparchus, an ancient Greek astronomer, on the Wikipedia just now (I know, I'm a nerd) (would it be cooler if I mention that he invented trigonometry? no?) because I was reading earlier about the phenomenon called precession.

That is not, by the way, the miserable period of time when you realize you're going to be depressed all day. Unless we're still collecting sniglets? Are we?

Anyway, the article says that Hipparchus is "known for being almost universally recognized as discoverer of the precession of the equinoxes." That basically means that the sky, as we perceive it, tends to move around, so the "fixed stars" aren't quite so fixed. & to annoy astrologers, this is mentioned every few years because the constellations that they think determine their fates are not where they're supposed to be anymore, having moved one sky-segment over.

Why does precession happen? It's all about the shape of the Earth. This is what I read:

"Being an oblate spheroid, the Earth has a nonspherical shape, bulging outward at the equator." This makes the earth spin not like a top (as we imagine when we spin a globe) but more like a gyroscope.

It's all the more amazing because Oblate Spheroid was my nickname in high school. That, or "Fatty Fatty Fat Pants Faggot."

I feel more proud of the first one. After reading this today, I mean.

The Age Of Self Help Radio Began This Morning!

Then ended ninety minutes later. Oh well. That was the shortest recorded Age in the History Of The Ages. It was so short, in fact, that Self Help Radio is not allowed to be included in the running for those things that Belong To The Ages. Instead, it will probably be consigned to Those Things You Haven't Thought About In Ages.

The show nonetheless managed to feature lots of songs about different ages, & discussed therein were the three ages of prehistory, a possible answer to the question "What comes after the Iron Age?", & a complete avoidance of all those geologic ages that are harder to pronounce than the epochs. Truly, a most edifying experience.

The shows that were played are listed below. The show is sitting at the Self Help Radio website, wondering if it's still in the Information Age or now the Big Data Age. For your convenience, the show has been bifurcated & part one is available at this link while part two is available at this link.

Please enjoy. It's the Age of Tiny Radio Shows, after all!

(part one)

"Stone Age Woo" Nervous Norvus _Stone Age Woo: The Zorch Sounds Of Nervous Norvus_
"Space Age" The Monks _The Early Years 1964 - 1965_
"Fabled Age" Barcelona _Simon Basic_

"Ice Age" Joy Division _Still_
"Age Of Progress" A-Frames _Black Forest_
"Sons Of The Silent Age" David Bowie _"Heroes"_
"2nd Dark Age" The Fall _Dragnet_
"Diamond Age" Blue Orchids _A Darker Bloom: The Blue Orchids Collection_
"Bronze Age" Dawn Of Man _In The Bronze Age_

"The Atom Age" Bill Nelson's Red Noise _Sound On Sound_
"Computer Age" Neil Young _Trans_

(part two)

"Space Age Renegade" Mandroid _B-Boy No Comply_
"The Age Of Information" Momus _Ping Pong_

"Aquarius" Paul Jones _Best Of The Sixties_
"Another Age" Phil Ochs _Rehearsals For Retirement_
"New Age" Velvet Underground _Loaded_
"Golden Age" Peter Blegvad _Hangman's Hill_
"Age Of Kings" Mountain Goats _All Eternals Deck_

"The Golden Age Of Aviation" The Lucksmiths _Staring At The Sky_
"Space Age Mom" Damien Jurado _Waters Ave S._
"Space-Age Couple" Captain Beefheart _Lick My Decals Off, Baby_

Whither Ages?

I wanted to do a show about ages a million moons ago when I was listening to Joy Division's song "Ice Age" on my iPod while walking somewhere in the hot Texas summer. I thought it would be funny to have an entire show about ice ages when it was going on forty days of plus one hundred degree temperature. Funny? Cruel.

I could never find a lot of (good) songs about ice ages so my definition expanded. I finally decided I had enough songs. That's the reason it's happening. I wish I could be all like Stan Lee was when he proclaimed "The Age of Marvel Comics is here!" & be like "The Age Of Self Help Radio is here!" But I am not that bold.

Besides, Self Help Radio is only eight years old. If I did try to shout that, someone might shush me & say "Act your age!"

There will be many ages discussed & many songs about ages played tomorrow morning at 7:30 am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington, & you can listen to it anywhere at wrfl dot fm. I'll put it up later tomorrow on the Self Help Radio Web Page.

I have a feeling, though, that the Age Of Self Help Radio may only last ninety minutes. So you might want to listen live. To get that "I was there" feeling. It'll be something kind queasy.

Preface To Ages: Another Confusing Theme Needs To Be Elucidated

Note to self: stop using the word "elucidate."

This week's Self Help Radio theme, which is "ages," might best have been (if I had been thinking about it) capitalized, as "Ages," which would perhaps have separated it from the many other definitions of the word. The meaning of "ages" (or "Ages") that Self Help Radio will be exploring this week is these, courtesy of the Free Dictionary:

1. A period in the history of humankind marked by a distinctive characteristic or achievement: the Stone Age; the computer age.

2. A period in the history of the earth, usually shorter than an epoch: the Ice Age.

3. A period of time marked by the presence or influence of a dominant figure: the Elizabethan Age.

Some Ages are have a general agreement in terms of time, usually because of an event, such as "the Atomic Age," so-called because it began with the development & explosion of the atom bomb. Some are more arbitrary, like calling a period of time "a golden age" (as some in this country do) when, perhaps, at the same time many of the people around were victims of oppression. They probably will not call that time for them a "golden age."

Of course, like all measurements of time, "Ages" are human-designated. But then so is Self Help Radio. The exploration of "Ages" on the show this week may indeed begin the Age Of Self Help Radio.

Though I doubt it.

Parachesis

"In rhetoric, parachesis is the repetition of the same sound in several words in close succession. Alliteration (initial rhyme) is a special case of parachesis."

So says the Wikipedia. It's disappointing, because if I heard someone say, "I'd like a parachesis," I would imagine they meant a couple of delicious bricks of cheddar.

Alliteration is one of those fingers of speech that one learns right away & uses to annoy everyone except English teachers. I still remember when, in ninth grade, I told my teacher, whose name might have been Mrs. Holder, that a phrase in Poe's "The Raven" was a perfect example of alliteration: "the grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt... bird of yore." She might have given me a gold star. Or boxed my ears.

Alliteration is a form of consonance, which is when you have repeated consonant sounds, except alliteration is simply at the beginning of words. Poe uses a little consonance above with "ungainly." He's a bad-ass.

He's also great (not bad) at assonance, which is repeated vowel sounds in words. All of these are examples of parachesis, which is not a word anyone ever said to me in school. Even now, as I thumb through a fun little book I've had for many moons called "Figures Of Speech: 60 Ways To Turn A Phrase" by Arthur Quinn, I see this author regards all forms of parachesis to be a bit beneath him. He prefers instead metaplasmus, which is misspelling for effect, used often in dialect, although Shakespeare (of course) does it all the time.

Don't tell my wife about it, though - she'll claim all her spelling mistakes are "for effect." Also, she'll beat me at Scrabble with "metaplasmus" over a triple words score.

The Show About Wondering Wanders Home

In case you were wondering why it took over a day to get my Self Help Radio show about wondering up, I'll just say that in a twenty-one hour period I found myself doing eight hours of radio with about two hours of sleep. Is it any wonder I put off putting the show about wondering on the web? It is in fact no wonder that I didn't have the time. I only wonder if this increasing sleep deprivation will start making me horticulture ampersand flute room.

Even though I am having to splash water into my face just to keep writing this, I was relatively cogent during my show about wondering, which (as you need not wonder) had plenty of songs about wondering. The show may be wondering but it hasn't wandered from its home at self help radio dot net. The show is divided into two parts, with part one being carefully placed here, & the second part somewhat more recklessly stuck down here. If you're wondering what songs I played about wondering, they're listed below, including which songs are in which part.

I wonder if I'll remember writing this after a few more hours sleep.

(part one)

"I Wonder" Bill Nelson's Orchestra Arcana _Iconography_
"I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder" Martha Tilton _And The Angel Sings_
"I Wonder" The Gants _Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, Vol. 2_

"Wonder People (I Do Wonder)" Love _Forever Changes_
"I Wonder Why" Dion & The Belmonts _Dion Hits (1958-1963)_
"Runaway" Del Shannon _Greatest Hits_
"I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now?" Banjo Kings _The Good Time Jazz Story_
"I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" Boyce & Hart _I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight_
"I'm Wondering" Stevie Wonder _At The Close Of A Century_

"Things I Wonder" The Shaggs _The Shaggs_
"You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here" The Mothers Of Invention _Freak Out!_
"I Wonder Who We Are" The Clientele _Bonfires On The Heath_
"The Boy Wonders" Aztec Camera _High Land, Hard Rain_

(part two)

"Well I Wonder" The Smiths _Meat Is Murder_

"I Wonder" The Ronettes _Phil Spector: Back To Mono_
"I Wonder" The Squires _Neil Young Archives, Vol. I: Early Years (1963-1968)_
"I Wonder Who" Aguaturbia _Complete Tracks_
"Sometimes I Wonder" The Harbinger Complex _Love Is The Song We Sing (San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970)_
"I Wonder Why" The Pastels _I Wonder Why 7"_
"I've Been Wondering" The Minders _Hooray For Tuesday_
"I Wonder Where Our Love Has Gone" The Mountain Goats _Sweden_

"I Wonder" Gaze _Shake The Pounce_
"I Wonder What Went Wrong" Meow Meow! _Meow Meow!_
"I Wonder Why My Favorite Boy Leaves Me In The Rain" Marshmallow Kisses _I Wonder Why My Favorite Boy Leaves Me In The Rain_
"Wonder" The Springfields _Wonder 7"_
"I Wonder If You're Drunk Enough To Sleep With Me Tonight" Ballboy _A Guide For The Daylight Hours_
"I Wonder If I'll Ever See You Again" The Leopards _I Wonder If I'll Ever See You Again_

Wondering About Today's Self Help Radio?

I am going to be subbing another show on WRFL tonight, so I won't have the time today to post this morning's Self Help Radio, about wondering, until tomorrow. Sorry about that.

If you'd like to hear me play very old skool hip hop, I'll be doing that on Tommy's show tonight from 10 pm to midnight Eastern, at the link above or 88.1 fm in old skool radio format. I will be exceptionally sleep deprived. It could be amusing.

Whither The Wondering Show?

Someone was telling me I should do a "wonderful" show since there "must be a lot of songs using the word 'wonderful' shouldn't there?" (Incidentally, I'm not sure those were the person's exact words, but it seemed to be more forceful if not more believable to put the statement in quotes.) It's true, I found approximately four million songs with the title "wonderful" alone. (The Allmusic Guide lists over eight hundred but compared with the amazing set-up we have around here, they're amateurs.) (Amateurs that make more money than we do.) (I shouldn't feel bad about that because Self Help Radio is a labor of love.) (Also a labor of self-loathing.)

I have just received a telegram from Grammar Control that says I have already used up my June allotment of parenthetical expressions. That seems unfair. I am appealing the decision & I have something interesting to add but if I put it in a sentence right next to the interesting statement it wouldn't make any sense but I have no more parentheses left. I also wish I had invested in Emoticons. But I chose not to click that box when I signed up for the blog.

Being a contrary sort - to get back to what I was saying - I decided against a "wonderful" show but was intrigued by the idea of wondering. I wondered what a show about wondering would be like - & I also figured out that if you use dashes instead of parentheses, you can still have grammatical structures that resembled parenthetical expressions but weren't - I guess Emily Dickinson used a lot of dashes - instead of parentheses - & there are some people that have called that genius - so I recall something my mother never said to me, which wasn't, "If you can't be a genius, stand close to a genius & hope for osmosis."

Grammar Central has ordered me to cease & also desist from overuse of the dashes until they can make a formal ruling. Which is a shame because they don't meet for formal rulings until the fall. I wonder if I'll get in trouble if I don't cease & desist? What if I just cease but don't desist? Or vice-versa?

Best not fuck with Grammar Central. They could recall my accent collection.

But there's nothing wrong with wondering.

Preface To The Wondering Show: It's Going To Be One Of Those Shows Isn't It

Fancy is struck. The passive voice is implemented. No one has any cause for alarm.

I know people get in trouble for things everyone else is doing - illegal downloads & marijuana smoking are two things that I just thought of - but some kids were talking the other day about both of those things, how they do it without feeling like it's wrong & how they just don't feel the law has caught up. But they could get into trouble for doing either!

Even though it hasn't gone anywhere, I do kind of miss vinyl. I was never sensitive enough (or self-important enough) to claim it sounded better than digital music. I gravitated to digital music out of convenience. But the presentation of music on vinyl is more aesthetically pleasing.

One of the more fascinating, & possibly illegal, developments is the fact that people will put songs on YouTube as a "movie." I was talking to a friend in Austin about a song that she didn't know if she'd heard & I just went to YouTube & there it was. In fact, some deejays I know play their entire shows off YouTube these days. Not me. I still use CDs.

I like playing requests but I wish people who made requests would be sensitive to songs that have bad words in them - what the FCC considers bad words - when they make their requests. I have no idea if it makes them mad if I can't play a song with "fuck" in it at eight in the morning, but I am grateful for those song lyrics web sites because I can at least scan the lyrics before I play a song I'm unfamiliar with.

Actually, I don't mind that they don't care - they're not familiar with the FCC & they probably don't even think about the songs & whether they're indecent or obscene. That's my problem. I just feel a twinge of guilt when I can't play it for its content of even the simplest of naughty words.

I have a headache. Do you?

I'm Hungover/I'm All Over The Place

Both are true. With the wife out of town & the dogs paid hush puppies as hush money, I am free to be me & me. But instead I am squandering my freedom eating too much & subbing radio shows.

TONIGHT - Friday the 3rd - I'll be subbing The Uncle Bill Show, one of WRFL's best shows, & I'm hoping not to make a mess of it. That's from 8 to 10 pm Eastern time. Listen at 88.1 fm on your radio or online at wrfl dot fm.

Monday morning is another Sugar Substitute & Self Help Radio but MONDAY NIGHT I am subbing the Old School Hip Hop show from 10 to midnight. It'll be pretty old school. That's at the same place: 88.1 fm on your radio or online at wrfl dot fm.

I need to take a nap now.

A Devil - Er, I Mean, Satan - Of A Show

It was a quiet Memorial Day show this morning, wherein I played more songs that talked about Satan than most heavy metal shows. I don't think anyone was awake to listen, though.

The devil has lots of names (& he's been called a lot of names, too) & today's show examined a few of them: Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, The Evil One, The Prince Of Darkness, Mephisto - even Gary. We also talked about backwards masking, different origin stories for Satan, & I hoped someone would send me lots of Chick Tracts. No such luck, though. It's still just me & Satan.

The demonic songs I played are below. The show is where it usually is at self help radio dot net. It's in two parts, as I've recently begun to note, with part one in this part of hell & part two in this section of the Inferno. Since there's no such as a devil, it's not at all scary. Unless you think there's such a thing as a devil. That's frightening!

As always, thanks for listening. Satan thanks you, too.

xo gary

(part one)

"Liszt: Mephisto Waltz # 1, 'Der Tanz In Der Dorfschenke'" Angéle Dubeau & La Pietà _Infernal Violins_

"Beelz" Stephen Lynch _The Craig Machine_
"Bunnyrabbits, Satan, Cheese & Milk" Stark Effect _Mic In Track_
"Bus To Beelzebub" Soul Coughing _Ruby Vroom_
"Satan" Deerhoof _Holdy Paws_
"Yom Pha Barn Norn Pahwaa (Satan's Nightmare)" Paiboon _Thai Beat A Go-Go, Vol. 1_

"Satan Is Real" Louvin Brothers _Satan Is Real_
"Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down" Frank Proffitt, Vilas, NC _High Atmosphere_
"Chased Old Satan Through The Door" The Woodie Brothers _Black & White Hillbilly Music_
"Get Thee Behind Me, Satan" Almanac Singers _Songs For Political Action 03: The Almanac Singers: March 1941-July 1941_

(part two)

"Train To Satanville" Gin Gillette _Desperate Rock 'n' Roll, Vol. 2_
"Party Of The First Part" Bauhaus _Swing The Heartache: The BBC Sessions_

"Led Zeppelin" Michael Mills _Hidden & Satanic Messages In Rock Music_
"Satanic Messages" Michael Ian Black _I Am A Wonderful Man_
"Dignitaries Of Hell" Coven _Witchcraft Destoys Minds & Reaps Souls_
"Prince Of Darkness" Mr. Flood's Party _Mr. Flood's Party_
"Don't Shake Me Lucifer" Roky Erickson & The Aliens _The Evil One_

"Lucifer Over Lancashire" The Fall _458489 B Sides_
"Satan Rejected My Soul" Morrissey _Maladjusted_
"Prince Of Darkness" Mekons _Heaven & Hell_

Whither A Devil By Any Other Name...?

You might notice that I don't repeat themes - except on my anniversary shows - so when something strikes my fancy, & it makes me think of a theme, but I recognize (despite my early-onset senility) that I have in fact done that theme before, one thing I can do is see if there's some kind of semantic loophole I can utilize to "revisit" the theme without actually repeating it.

One of the earliest shows I did, back in July of 2003, when Self Help Radio wasn't even a year old, was a show with the theme "The Devil You Say." It was songs about devils. Since there are so many songs simply about devils, I didn't have to add songs about the other names of The Devil - like Satan, or Lucifer, or Beelzebub, or Justin Bieber - they remained in limbo. Until this show idea came along. Therefore, I am doing what appears to be another show about the devil - only no "devil" songs on it. A loophole! Unlike the kind you wish you could find in contracts you sign with the Evil One for your soul.

By the way, when I did the "devil" show, way back when, I got a call from a listener - this was in Austin, mind - who asked me if I was doing the show because that same day an inexplicably popular morning deejay on the NPR station - whose name I shall not say because he might be conjured by the attention, & he's a great reason not to be in Austin - had done a similar show. I told the caller that, no, I didn't listen to that particular person on the radio & would prefer electro-shock therapy to having to endure his dreadful idea of a radio show, & also that I had been working on the show all week without knowing he had done a show with the same theme (though I didn't have the interns he had to find music for me).

The caller seemed alarmed. "What do you think it means," he said, "that the two of you came up with the same theme on the same day?"

I said, "It's a pretty broad theme. It's just a coincidence."

"I don't think so," the caller scoffed. "It seems kinda ominous."

In radio land, you don't want to tell a listener that they're acting dumb & superstitious - or just dumb - & you certainly don't want to engage them & ask them what sort of supernatural mechanism known only to their tiny brains might be at work in such a situation - I'm sure he wouldn't have been as freaked out if the theme coincidentally repeated by the two of us had been "cheese" - so I just said thank you for the call & hung up.

Ah, Austin.

Meanwhile, in Lexington, you can listen to lots of songs about properly-named devils tomorrow on Self Help Radio on the 88.1 frequency at 7:30 am, following a new Sugar Substitute at 6am. You can listen everywhere that Satan can (especially in Austin, where the success of that NPR deejay can only be explained by a deal with Beelzebub) online at wrfl dot fm. I'll be archiving the show later that day, but just in case Satan doesn't allow it to air - you should listen!

Preface To A Devil By Any Other Name: Childhood Fears

Did you enjoy being frightened as a child? I was torn between the joy of being terrified & the general sense of calling bullshit on a world that was extremely suspect when it came to proving its scary claims. I kind of had a proto-scientific bent when it came to things that scared me. Here are two stories about intrepid Gary as a ghost-hunter & demon-summoner.

I remember when that book "The Amityville Horror" came out. My mother was reading it - I don't know if she ever finished it - & we had a giant hard-cover copy sitting in the living room which I had checked out one afternoon. On the cover was a picture of the window from which the evil pig - or else just evil pig eyes, I don't remember - could be seen. That haunted me. The evening after I read a few pages - not very scary pages, I remember - I couldn't go to sleep until after I had gone downstairs & hidden the book in the oven. The oven, I guess I imagined, would protect me from evil spirits.

Success! I was able to fall asleep, & didn't wake up to an evil pig looking at me for purposes I left to my imagination. Great. But what about the next night?

Also, would my mother be mad at me for putting a book in an oven overnight? (I didn't turn the oven on.) (She didn't say anything to me about it.)

The next night I thought, look, if ghosts or demons are going to come get me - I think because something as flimsy as an oven - an oven for fuck's sake! - had prevented them from coming, they might not actually exist - then why not let them come? The next night I brought the book upstairs with me.

It stayed there until either my mother retrieved it or I simply forgot it was there. I guess I knew books had a certain power, but that book, I had discovered, was full of shit.

As for summoning a demon, well - even though as children we didn't have any real idea who "Bloody Mary" was, the name itself was pretty frightening. What's more, we knew that she was dead now but could be summoned. Why summoned? Why would anyone want to bring a murderess back from the dead? Who made that stupid rule? No matter, we knew there was a scary she-demon from the past who was described as "bloody" no because she was hurt but because she bloodied people up, & we knew how to call her.

Here's the way I remember the process. & here's a description of it as a "game." But it was no game to us children.

Basically, you were supposed to go into a room without light (I thought immediately of a bathroom, since ours had no windows, although it was a more confined place), twirl twelve times saying "Bloody Mary!" (I chose to say it like Igor from the Frankenstein movies) & then, if you're not too sick, leaning into the mirror & saying her name a thirteenth time. She was supposed to appear &, out of gratitude for bringing her back, attack you & claw your eyes out.

The story intrigued me but I didn't know anyone who was brave enough to do it. So, one afternoon, when no one was around (I had enough sense at the age of nine or ten to realize that some people might think what I was doing was stupid), I gave it a shot. I confess I might have messed up the process some - as I said, the bathroom was small & I bumped into a lot of things as I was twirling - not to mention that I had to feel my way back around on the thirteenth turn to find the mirror - so all of this might have been rather disappointing to Mary - but of course she didn't come. I emerged with some bruises on my shins, but my eyes intact.

I was - & frankly still am - disappointed that I didn't live in a world with devils & demons & haunted books & mirrors. What has surprised me most about the people who live on this planet who still do think they live in a world with devils & demons & etc. is how easy it is to find out you don't all by yourself.

The Politics Of Lame

Just as this not-a-single-reason-for-existence blog celebrated its 1,100th (that's one thousand, one hundredth) post, I make the decision to "take it down a notch." (I am using that phrase incorrectly, as one might expect; it really means this.) I have, for the past couple of years, if not longer, if not shorter, tried to write in this blog, even when I have nothing to say, especially when I have nothing to say, at least five times a week. That seemed somehow appropriate (in whatever logical system that thankfully only exists in my own head) when the show was on in the afternoon or evening. For some reason, since the show is on in the mornings now, it just really seems awkward to me to have two days (Friday & Tuesday) which are only vaguely attached to the show's theme, when talking about the theme is what I advertise this blog to be for. Oh I suppose I could share videos & stuff on this blog, only that's what I use my Tumblr blog for. Or I could just post interesting links, or maybe just pictures of my animals... But isn't that what Facebook is for? Don't you have enough Facebook friends already? You want me to friend you is that it? The other option is to use these pages to write about some other topic I feel strongly about, like politics, or religion, or Star Trek, or my cats. I suppose I've done that in the past. I don't really have the stomach for a lot of it. I'm not really a critic & I'm not really all that topical. What I am is kind of lame.

(You know, lame.)

(Do people who are actually lame, which is to say, "disabled so that movement, especially walking, is difficult or impossible," object to that word meaning "uncool"? Or do we even call people like that "lame" anymore?)

(Where was I?)

All that tedious rationalizing up there is just my way of saying that I've decided to write only four days a week now instead of five. Fridays through Monday. Fridays I'll try to say something interesting, & Saturdays & Sundays are me talking about or around the upcoming theme, & Monday is when I announce I've posted the show on the web site. I don't think this will discommode anyone (I learned what that word, which means "to put to inconvenience; trouble," meant back in the day when I reflected that it would be very inconvenient & troubling if one pushed you off a commode, meaning a toilet, while you were using it) but I thought a formal announcement necessary.

Also, it gave me something to talk about on a Friday.

The 1,200th post looks farther away now.

Problem-O-Matic

You gotta problem with a show about problems?

Self Help Radio has long been described as "a show with problems," & today, in its own problematic way, it took an awkward step forward(ish) & became "a show ABOUT problems." Bravely (one supposes) forgoing the human desire for solutions, it decided to simply focus on - indeed, revel in - problems of all stripes. Psychologists all over the Lexington area felt strangely uncomfortable & did not know why.

The show sits where it should sit, away from the other shows, at self help radio dot net. Though it has problems with it, it's in two parts - part one is right here & the second part (which is really the problem half) is over here. The songs played on the show are listed below. There should be no problem downloading them, but if there is, it would feel appropriate.

Here is what is in the two parts:

(part one)

"Problems" The Sex Pistols _Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols_
"Problems" The Real Kids _No Place Fast_
"Problems" Heathens _Teenage Shutdown Vol. 10: The World Ain't Round, It's Square_

"Money Is A Problem" Dean Martin _Return To Me_
"Problems" Desmond Dekker _Israelites_
"Problem Is" Dub Pistols _Six Million Ways To Leave_
"Mind Problems" Tape Beatles _The Grand Delusion_
"First World Problem" MC Frontalot _Zero Day_

"Problems" Lee Fields _Problems_
"Problems" James Brown _Make It Funky/The Big Payback: 1971-1975_
"Problems" Mahjongg _Kontpab_

(part two)

"This Problem" Dislocation Dance _Music Music Music/Slip That Disc!_
"I Know You're Having A Problem" Telephone Company _Panda Brain!_
"I Don't Want To Talk About Your Problems" Cannanes _Witchetty Pole_

"Fat Guy Problems" Louis C.K. _Shameless_
"A Christian Girl's Problems" Gleaming Spires _Walk On Well Lighted Streets_
"Boy With A Problem" Elvis Costello _Imperial Bedroom_
"The Girl With The Attitude Problem" Dead Famous People _Arriving Late In Torn & Filthy Jeans EP_
"Girl Problem" Her Space Holiday _The Young Machines_
"Problems, Issues & Concerns" George Carlin _When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?_

"I Got A Problem" Neil Young _Landing On Water_
"Language Problem" The Only Ones _Darkness & Light: The Complete BBC Recordings_
"Problem Child" The Damned _Music For Pleasure_

Whither Problems?

One of the first radio shows I ever did, back in Austin, was a show I called "the broken show," in which I played songs about things that were broken - promises, bones, etc. - & a superstitious person called me & complained that I had jinxed her day - that since she heard the show, three things of hers had broken.

The proper response to that, of course, is to ask exactly what sort of mechanism would have to be in place to make a radio show which, obviously, someone would have had to hear have the power to break things in a stranger's life. The awesome response to that is, of course, to exult in the amazing power I had to reach into listeners' lives & fuck shit up.

My life is relatively problem-free at the moment & if I were as superstitious as my mother, I might imagine doing a radio show about problems could be inviting problems into my life. However, I remember that call, way back in 2002 - & I think, "Au contraire! If my radio show truly has the power to make themes into reality, it does so for listeners, not me!"

My mother does not buy that argument, by the way. She'd rather I not talk about problems.

I trust, however, that you have no problem with this sort of thing, being an enlightened 21st century modern. Therefore I have no problem inviting you to listen to tomorrow's Self Help Radio about problems, Monday morning at 7:30 am on 88.1 WRFL in Lexington. If you're not in Lexington, that should not be a problem, you can listen online at wrfl dot fm. & if you're having difficulties listening live, you can catch it later when I archive it on the Self Help Radio website.

I'll see you in the morning!

It's Number 1100

It's that time again. The appearance of meticulous accounting. Lots of figures added up in my head. Here are the "facts":

I started this blog on 9/12/06.

I reached post # 100 on 3/7/07, 176 (or so) days later.
I reached post # 200 on 8/13/07. 158 days (I counted) after post # 100.
I reached post # 300 on 1/9/08. 149 days after post # 200. No one else will count. So I must.
I reached post # 400 on 5/26/08. A mere 138 days after # 300.
I reached the somewhat impressive post # 500th on 10/14/08. That was 141 days after # 400.

I can't really remember what I wrote yesterday (or this morning!), I'm sure it would terrify me to revisit some of those old posts.

Anyway.

I reached post # 600 on 3/25/09. That was 162 days after # 500. & frankly a bit of a let-down.
I reached post # 700 on 9/23/09. A massive 186 days after # 600.
I reached post # 800 on 2/19/10. A more reasonable 149 days after # 700.
I reached post # 900 on 7/23/10. About a year ago more or less, & 154 days after # 800.
I reached post # 1000 - you heard me, ONE THOUSAND! - on 12/14/10.

Now it's 158 days later - 5/21/11 - it would have been sooner but I did take two weeks off at the end of the year to go to Australia, you know - & I've reached number 1100. It's mainly a milestone for mostly me, but I am open to whatever idears you might have about celebrating. I get to be on the radio tonight. That's usually enough for me.

Preface To Problems: Rapture Day! Problems Solved!

How appropriate! This week's show is about problems, & guess what? According to we can know dot com, "the date of the rapture of believers will take place on May 21, 2011." I am making the universal gesture of wiping my hands clean & then showing them as such, which means (okay, it may not be universal) "problem solved."

Well, problem solved if you're a Christian as narrowly defined by these Bible believers. I thought I was obsessive about Star Trek, but man, the calculations these nimrods come up with by comparing & contrasting different Bible passages & then interpreting them just right is positively nerdy. They might as well be arguing about how the new movie totally screws up Roddenberry's well-established continuity.

I don't care enough to read on to discover how they bypass Mark 13: 31-33. You know, "Heaven & earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. But of that day & that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. Take ye heed, watch & pray: for ye know not when the time is." That'd be like worrying about those episodes of Voyager where they seem to be beaming people aboard while their shields were up. It hardly, you know, seems worth it.

What's more important is two things: one, I'll be on the radio FIVE HOURS tonight, first playing hip hop as I sub Revolution Radio at 10pm, & then three more hours freeform from midnight to 3am. Post-rapture radio, for the unsaved. That's on the 88.1 fm frequency if you're in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm. Listen if you can!

Also, the next post is post number 1100. I am write a special extra SHR blog post today to celebrate!

I don't have a lot to say today

This should do it:

Countdown To The Eleven Hundredth Post!

I am about to reach the eleven hundredth post on this Self Help Radio blog. Perhaps I should do something to celebrate. Though "1100" is not exactly the most exciting number to reach. It looks, actually, like something that could possibly be an expletive in the language of a binary-based alien. If I were an artist I would draw a couple of computer-like beings acting angry at one another & one of them flipping the other off with a keyboard which saying "1100!" Would anyone understand it? Besides not thinking it was funny, I mean?

I can't remember when I started this blog, but I suppose when the time comes I'll do another irritating calculation that only makes me happy. When I was a kid, I often got frustrated with myself for not finishing anything - for example, I'd make lots of "first issues" of little comic books & was particularly proud of my "To Be Continued!" final pages. But they were never to be continued. I moved on.

I'm not sure if my adult life is as filled with abandonment in the same manner, but boy I wish I could show my depressed thirteen-year-old self that I've kept up with something as long as I have with this blog! Or even the radio show. It'll be nine years this October. Nine years & three radio stations in three different states. I think that would make my thirteen-year-old self wet his pants.

Not that it was terribly difficult to make my thirteen-year-old self wet his pants. It's just an expression.

A Show About Drums

Drums. The world's oldest & most ubiquitous musical instrument. Virtually every culture that exists or has ever existed has them. Your parents wouldn't let you have any when you were kids. Hippies ruined playing them for you forever. Most drummers you meet are very sweaty, nearly all the time(*). & yet you still think they're pretty awesome. Well, so does Self Help Radio.

In fact, here's an entire show about drums, drummers & drumming. It's not a show about specific drummers. It has lots of drumming, & some different kinds of drums, but only one drum solo, & that one is done by a child at a talent show recorded in the 1980s. In short, it's done the way Self Help Radio does things, which is most probably not the right way to do things, but it's too late now. I was traumatized at an early age by hippies at a drum circle.

The show is drumming its fingers, waiting for you, at the Self Help Radio website. It's divided into two parts: part one is beating the bass drum menacingly right here; the other is tattooing the snare right over here. The songs in the two parts are listed below. Like Neal Peart, this show can play its drums upside down.

* This is actually not true. But studies have shown that seeing a group of hippies in a drum circle makes the average person wish that there were no longer any drums or patchouli in the world.

(part one)

"A Child's Introduction To Drums" Ruckus Roboticus _Playing With Scratches_
"I Hear The Drummer (Tunng Edit)" Quincy & Xen Cuts Allstars _Ninja Tune XX Vol 2_

"Drummin' Man (Anita O'Day, vocals)" Gene Krupa _Juke Joint Jive_
"The Drummer Plays For Me (Hal Blaine & The Young Cougars)" Darlene Love _So Much Love - A Darlene Love Anthology 1958-1998_
"Drums" Michael Holliday _UK Teenage Jamboree Vol. 2_
"Drums" Jon & Robin _Do It Again! The Best Of Jon & Robin_
"Drummer Man" The Brady Bunch _The Kids From The Brady Bunch_
"Drummerman" Tonight _Tonight_

"Those Conga Drums" Jonathan Richman _Jonathan Sings!_
"The Drum" Slapp Happy _Casablanca Moon_
"She Bangs The Drums" The Stone Roses _The Stone Roses_

(part two)

"Drum Solo" The Talent Show _The Talent Show_
"The Ballard Of J Drummer" The Fall _The Light User Syndrome_
"Different Drum" Me First & The Gimme Gimmes _Blow In The Wind_

"Funky Drummer" James Brown _Star Time_
"Give The Drummer Some" Ultramagnetic MC's _Critical Beatdown_
"A Different Drum" Peter Gabriel _Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ_

"Just Like A Drummer" The Wave Pictures _Instant Coffee Baby_
"Your Brother's Drums" Pearly Gatecrashers _But Wait, There's More_
"Drum Beat For Baby" Weekend _La Varieté_
"Drum Machines Will Save Mankind" Mikrofisch _Masters Of The Universe_

Whither Drums?

I don't think I have a favorite drum solo or even a favorite drummer. I tried to learn how to play the drums once but of course didn't want to practice all the time. Practice was boring. When I see musicians play I often imagine they don't practice at all, but I know they do. The first time I realized that a band had to play a certain song sometimes dozens of time before they got the recorded version I enjoyed it kinda blew my mind. It was probably listening to those Beatles' "Let It Be" session bootlegs. Then bands play the songs over & over.

I would "jam" with a couple of friends over a decade ago - me on the drums - friends I don't see or talk to anymore. I'm not entirely sure where they ended up. One of them was married with a kid, that's more common in my life these days, but not so much then. The other apparently came out of the closet & renounced his pals & lives perhaps in California. I kinda miss them, although if there's anything Facebook has taught me, it's that missing people is mostly more fun than finding out that their lives are as uninteresting as mine.

I named the band The Blames. A friend liked the name a lot. He even suggested the title for our first album: "Share The Blames." But the summer ended & we stopped practicing. It was obvious I wasn't going to be any good. One fellow moved cities with his wife & child. When I look back it seems like we played in a dingy, hot "practice space" a lot, but I'll bet it was just two or three times. They enjoyed smoking pot. I drank beer & chain-smoked cigarettes while I "drummed." I just don't have a natural aptitude for music. & I don't want to work toward it, to overcome my natural inability.

I am sometimes impressed by a drummer on a recording, even if he or she is a session drummer, only to discover that the drummer's resume is really, really dull. For example, I think the drumming on Dylan's "Blonde On Blonde" is transcendent. But the drummer, Kenny Buttrey, mainly recorded in Nashville for middle-of-the-road country or folk artists. The Allmusic Guide calls his drumming for Dylan "perhaps his most significant work."

Tomorrow's show won't focus on particular drummers. It'll be songs about drums & drumming, & drummers in general. There might be a drum solo, but it won't be what you'd expect. Or maybe you don't expect anything. I am perhaps too presumptuous. Like I do.

New Self Help Radio! Tomorrow live at 7:30 am on 88.1 fm in Lexington, on wrfl dot fm all over the place! & of course archived later on self help radio dot net! Drums. It's a fun word to say. Drums.