Something Something Columbus Ohio Something

Hey! I was totally working on a new Self Help Radio Extra today (don't click on that link! I haven't made one since July or something!) but then the wife & me went to Columbus for no apparent reason. I didn't get to see much of the town as it was shrouded in a dense green fog (that's not true) but we did manage to go to an awesome vegetarian restaurant run (apparently) by scrawny vegan women. It was so much better than pretty much any place to eat in Huntington that it was worth the tangle of highway & the dense green fog (there was no dense green fog!). For its reputation as the 16th largest city in the United States (just behind Austin), the place reminded me a little of Dallas. Not in anything except the sprawl. Obviously, the trees & the weather are nowhere near as pretty in Texas as in Columbus. Fun Columbus fact: "Columbus is located within 550 miles of half of the population of the United States." Austin can't say that.

The restaurant, by the way, is the Whole World Natural Bakery & Restaurant. I highly recommend it. I'm not sure what an unnatural bakery would be like - maybe like the canteen at Monsanto? I think a supernatural bakery would be cool - all those magical things flying around, right into your stomach. Mmmm.

I also saw a real live pumpkin patch. My first ever. Here's me & the wife being ridiculous & the pumpkin patch behind:



Tomorrow! A new Self Help Radio Extra! I promise.

The View From Glastonbury Tor

I hear it's phenomenal. Here's a picture of it. I wonder if I'll ever get to see it in-person-like.

What I can do in-person-like is a radio show (although it's not all that in-person-like, as listeners & I are connected only by sounds traveling on the airwaves) which I did do this morning which is now available at selfhelpradio.net. There are actually two shows, though I did them back-to-back without even a break for cake & tea, but they have been separated for fear of cross-contamination. Details are:

1) This week's Self Help Radio, which is about spoons; &
2) This week's Sugar Substitute, which is about pop!

Please download, listen, enjoy & then repeat.

Your Weekly Reminder, Forgetful

Beep beep beep beep! Turn on your radio at 6am tomorrow (that's October 7th) (also, that's in Huntington, West Virginia) & don't go back to sleep but tune it in to 88.1 fm which is WMUL which features two great shows starting at 6am - well, one great show starts at 6am, then there's another one at 7:30am - you understand, why be such a pest about it? - Sugar Substitute is on at 6am with Self Help Radio following at 7:30am. Wowy zowy! Don't go back to bed! Get some coffee & listen very carefully. You will grow as a person.

Beep beep beep beep! Did you go back to bed? What? You're not even IN West Virginia? Not Kentucky nor Ohio? Oops. Go back to sleep. Just WATCH THIS SPACE for announcements about when these shows will be put up on selfhelpradio.net - because they will be. Soon after they've happened. Bet on it.

Beep beep beep beep! Oh for the love of God can you turn that damn alarm off. Jeez.

Whither Spoons?

Just look at this. Just look. At this. From (of all places!) wiki.answers.com!

Q: What drugs can be used using a spoon?
A: Most drugs used intravenously that need to be transformed from powder to liquid. Most common being Heroin, Cocaine, & Speed. There are also several types of pills that may be crushed & used IV or IM including Dilaudid or Oxycontin.

Spoons! Spoons aiding & abetting drug users! Is it any wonder that the marvelous spoon is considered the least important eating utensil in the world today, lagging vastly behind the inscrutable fork & the homicidal knife? In some polls, of silverware & cutlery, even beaten by the bastard spork? Why? Why should that be?

Because of the relationship of spoons to drugs. That must be the reason!

Self Help Radio this week vindicates the spoon! The reputation of the spoon shall be rehabilitated! Soon the world shall look upon the spoon not as a junkie's helper but as the brave implement that shovels food into the mouths of us citizens & our precious children once more!

Preface To Spoons: Nothing At All About Bands With "Spoon" In Their Name

Self Help Radio has only a few rules, most of which could be regularly violated & no one would give a flying flip. But they're not. This week, there was some discussion of one of the rules that has been in place since the show began - seven years ago, & we celebrate next week! - & that rule is kinda simple: whatever the theme is, don't play bands or musicians whose names happen to be the same as the theme. (If the theme is the band, however, that rule doesn't apply. For example, a show about the Velvet Underground, which has happened in the past, could & did include a song called "Velvet Underground.") If the bands themselves have songs named after themselves, like someone of them do, that could be & has been included. But it's included because of the song, not the band.

A few people have written to ask if this week's show, the subject of which will be spoons, will include either of the bands called Spoon (from Missouri or Texas), or the Canadian band The Spoons, or old skool rap sensation Spoonie Gee, or new skool electronica producer Spoon (of Jam & Spoon), or even bands like Spoonfed Hybrid or Fischerspooner. The answer is no. None of those folks have a song about spoons - or even related to spoons - although Spoonie Gee does have a song called "Spoonin' Rap" which almost made the cut. I wish that some of the bands above had in fact written a song about spoons, but they didn't. Too bad.

Speaking of, another rule of Self Help Radio forbids (knowingly) playing different versions of the same song to pad out the playlist. This particular rule is sort of in response to a practice by an Austin radio personality who, it is safe to say, is loved & loathed in equal parts (though it's pretty easy to ignore him, since one can change a channel, unless one has to work in some place where his is the station of choice). One of the reasons for such ambivalence is that he had (assuming he might have changed this habit, as the Self Help Radio team hasn't heard his show in many, many years) a habit of playing numerous covers of a certain song in a row, playing the original version every other song. Wrap your head around this. He'd play, for example, "Day Tripper," by the Beatles. Then a cover. Then the Beatles' version again. Then another cover. Then the Beatles' version again. Then another cover. For over an hour. Sometimes for two whole hours, if his interns found him enough covers. Unbelievable. Maddening.

But some folks did like it. Not over here, which is why he hasn't been listened to for many moons in these here parts, even when these here parts were still in Austin. So the "no repetitive covers rule" was established, & it has been enforced with remarkable consistency - the idea being, if a radio show can't be filled with all different songs, it's suffering from a lack of imagination, & the theme should be altered, edited or dropped.

However, this week's show breaks that rule - sort of. It involved a blues song about a spoonful & its transformation over the years. But. Too much has already been revealed. The rules are in place. The show is taking shape. All is right with this tiny little part of the world.

Paraprosdokian

"A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians & satirists." (Says the wikipedia.)

Examples!

Will Rogers: "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."
Winston Churchill: “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
Groucho Marx: "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it."
Dorothy Parker: "If all the girls at Vassar were laid end to end, I wouldn't be surprised."
Mitch Hedberg: "I haven't slept for ten days. Because that would be too long."
Jimmy Carr: "When someone close to you dies, move seats."
Vance Chamberlain: "She told me the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. She was the worst cardiologist I ever knew."

Bring your own!

Used To Be? Is!

Yep, the Self Help Radio show that used to have the theme "used to" may no longer exist in the present, as is right & proper, but it does now exist in the past, in archived form, at selfhelpradio.net, where everyone used to go to listen to Self Help Radio shows before they realized that they weren't very good. But no matter! You can get used to the lower quality of the shows because there are so many of them!

A case in point: also in the same place (selfhelpradio.net) you can find the first episode of Huntington's only (as far as can be determined) electronica show, called Dickenbock Electronics. Oh wow! Oh gee! Oh crap, it's only about as good as Self Help Radio. Well, you can't win them all.

But go listen anyway! It's not like you have anything better to do.

You Used To Enjoy Listening To Self Help Radio...

Maybe one day you will again? If you think you can be rehabilitated - if you think you can get used to listening to Self Help Radio again - please remember, it's now on at 7:30 in the a.m. on 88.1 fm, WMUL, in lovely & chilly Huntington, West Virginia. Since WMUL doesn't stream its music programming live, you can listen to a recording of the show probably later in the day over in the usual place, selfhelpradio.net.

If you're an early riser, you may also want to listen to the premiere of Dickenbock Electronics, which will begin its biweekly rotation at 6am on 88.1 fm. It'll share the space with Sugar Substitute, which will air on alternate weeks. Six o'clock in the morning is just as good as time for bleeps & bloops as it is for pop pop pop. You know it.

Self Help Radio tomorrow explores that odd linguistic phrase "used to," in both its main senses: talking about things you used to do, & getting used to things. So if you used to enjoy listening to Self Help Radio, now is the time to get used to listening to it again. Please do!

Whither Used To?

Ah, the fertile fluff of sentiment! How it wows us on! Was it perhaps Norman Vincent Perp or was it Vincent Van Gorp who once stuttered, "The past, she or he ain't what we used to think it ought to be!"? At odds, as always, with current thinking in nostalgia, brave souls suffering from a lack of maudlin tendencies challenge their mawkish peers with cold, rational eyeglasses shined on the blurry charts of history. Yet are they doomed to fail? Or shall they instill rigorous & removed standards on the industries that make the most of human rue, regret & recrimination? Irony of ironies! Only time will tell.

Confined as they are to dismissing the human desire to ponder & misconstrue, these scholars perhaps downplay the point of remembrance: a double chance at redemption: first, in the possible misremembering - especially if no one from "those days" is around to gainsay one; & second, in vows & promises, to oneself & others, to have "learned" from the events now embarrassingly etched into one's psyche. Opinion polls strongly suggest the former to be the most successful, as it requires the least amount of work.

Who, then, shall step up to employ & therefore subvert these techniques? Perhaps the mission might begin with the abandonment of the competition paradigm - surely how one views what once was in attempts to recast it as what could never have been is not an either/or proposition. Dr. Lenny Caldicott of the imaginary Flutter Institute has begun such a project, identifying nearly fourteen ways a human can wrangle with wistfulness. But even he admits his meager & tentative forays into this new scholarly wilderness are barely the beginning - "I'm not terribly inventive," he confides. "Also, I'm a little dumb." He urges graduate students & coffee shop baristas to enter the field en masse, to transform it utterly in the same way a previous generations invented such things as "the humanities" & "American studies." "It can't go on the way it used to," he says, "& even that sentence deserves at the very least a write-up in the 'news' box of your average academic journal."

Whatever the future, it shall one day be the past, & how it shall be perceived is being grumbled over by a small but sturdy group of new thinkers. One day, then, we can look back & interpret how they chose to look back & interpret, & even then perhaps we can argue about their perceptions, & therefore shall none in this promising field ever be without work, then or now or in the futures that shall be.

Preface To Used To: I Used To Celebrate Every 100th Post I Created, But Now, Not So Much

It's true. This is the 700th blog entry for the Self Help Radio blog. & here are some factoids about Self Help Radio which you can use at no cost to you the next time you play Obscurity Jeopardy:

Self Help Radio began officially Wednesday, October 9, 2002 at 2pm CST. It lasted sixty minutes. (There had been two or three shows on a different time before the name had gelled, but as soon as it seemed like Wednesday would be the day, the website was built & the clock started.)

The first theme was "The War Show," & the idea was to call all the shows "the [theme] show," but that was abandoned relatively quickly. The show that was scheduled to be on before Self Help Radio was called "The Pilot Show," which was a training hour for new volunteers at the radio station, & that day I subbed it, since no one was scheduled, & that theme was "Hello!" However, no one around here counts that as the first Self Help Radio. Nope.

The show that followed at the time was nice punk rock show which showcased showily bands both local & touring that were in Austin that week. It was called "Live Bait."

I wish I knew what the first archived show was - I recorded the show from the get-go & possess recordings of virtually every Self Help Radio (there are a few gaps, which historians many moons from now will bewail) but I didn't think of making them available on a website till either 2004 or 2005.

& finally, I created this blog almost four years after Self Help Radio began, on September 12, 2006. I generally wrote in it five days a week, although I forgot sometimes, & most often I discussed the themes of the upcoming shows around three days before the show, one post a "preface," the other a "whither [theme]?" It's amazing that I did that from the get-go, although the "whither [theme]?" posts predated the "preface" post by one post. At this point, as well, Self Help Radio was on Friday afternoons.

The 100th post happened on March 7, 2007.

The 200th post happened on August 13, 2007. (158 days later.)

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.) (Also, at this point, Self Help Radio had become a show without a radio station.)

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.)

& now, 186 days since the 600th post, we're at 700. Due to my month off this year, it's slowed down a little - or a lot. But now that SHR is thriving on WMUL I think things will perk up.

In any event, I used to celebrate these things in some way, shape or form. You know, by doing something notable, or noting something I did. I don't do that anymore. & the past laughs in mockery!

Provender

The word of the day is "provender." It's pronounced prov-en-der, with the o in "prov" being short, like saying "prof" (for "professor") with a v instead of an f. The "ender" is two syllables & is pronounced like it rhymes with bender or sender. Provender. Use it at least once today, incorrectly. Might I suggest this sentence? "She's a real provender, man."

It means both the food you give to your livestock or domestic animals, & any supply of food. I seem to remember learning the word while reading "All Quiet On The Western Front," but it could also have been Stephen Crane. Or one of those "Little House On The Prairie" books. There was no real need in my life to use the word, so of course I used it incorrectly. Just to fuck with people. Like you should.

It's an old word, as it should be - those of us who use English are descended from people who kept stores for their livestock. It comes from the French word provende, where we also get "provisions," & that word comes from the Latin praebenda, which meant one's daily allowance of provisions. Its meaning hasn't changed much. It hasn't really had to. It's not really all that exciting a word.

Which makes it a little disappointing, as the Self Help Radio blog only has a "word of the day" on days that begin or end on September 26, 2009. It's in the contract. Might I suggest other "word of the day" sites on the internet? No? All right then.

Introducing... Dickenbock Electronics!

You all know Richard "Dick" Dickenbock, the entrepreneur, the raconteur, the saboteur, the voyeur, the wit, the witless, the eyewitness. It's no secret his many dollars & little sense are the financial backbone of the Self Help Radio media empire. But what many people don't know about him is that, besides being almost certainly fictional, he's a priest. Also, he absolutely adores electronic music. (Electronic religious music, though, not so much.)

That's why the same people who bring you both Self Help Radio & the pop show Sugar Substitute are proud to announce (mainly to Dick Dickenbock) the creation of a third radio show called Dickenbock Electronics, named in honor of (or in spite of) Mr. Dickenbock himself. The show will alternate with Sugar Substitute (since no one wants to give more radio time to yours truly) (& Mr Dickenbock is only supportive enough to buy the name of the show) on Wednesdays at 6am. The first show will be this coming Wednesday, September 30, & then the week after that is Sugar Substitute on Wednesday, October 7, & then the next week - well, you get the idea. It's basically the definition of alternating. Didn't mean to be condescending or anything.

You can certainly contact us in the usual manner (writing here or here, for example, or writing something on a stone & throwing it through the office window) if you have suggestions, requests, threats, subpoenas, recovered memories, etc., although every idea (sigh) will need to be pre-approved by Mr. Dickenbock. I'm sure you understand. The dude has serious cash. & not-so-serious cash, which he calls "funny money."

Aren't you excited? This Wednesday, the premiere of Dickenbock Electronics!

This Show, Like The Last Show

Wednesdays, which is now when Self Help Radio airs, will probably be a little rough for me. Not because of any work-week cliche like it's "hump-day," nor because of co-workers who feel perfectly all right humping me whatever day it is, nor because of anything at all related to employment - no, I don't have a job, therefore I can go right home after my three hours on the radio & snooze.

Or can I? Ask my dogs! I stayed up late Tuesday because I am an anxious sort, & returned after my show around half past nine & fed the menagerie, then retired to my boudoir, where I clutched a lumpy pillow to my head & dozed to dream about whatever sorts of awards they give people with amazing radio shows, & the ceremonies those awards would compel me to attend.

But this is a house with three dogs & a probably equal number of cats. They are cute fellows but they are selfish & mean. I was asleep not two hours - barely time to get interviewed on the red carpet by some entertainment news show! - when they were asking to go out, asking to be loved, asking to borrow the car keys to go get some lunch - you know, the shit pets do.

After explaining that they didn't know how to drive, & giving them a little loving, as they are cute as hell, I got up & put the selfsame shows I did that morning on the interweb. (I did a Sugar Substitute along with a Self Help Radio.) I then zombied my way through the rest of the day, retiring at the unheard-of time of 10pm (!) even before I watched the Daily Show. I should've said something yesterday, but it would've looked & read a lot like remarks in drool. & maybe this will be how my Wednesdays are from now on.

The shows are at selfhelpradio.net of course. Remember, if you're named Emily, the Self Help Radio show might be very interesting for you.

Whither Emily?

I am currently without an Emily in my life. I have a niece named Emily, & I saw her last week, although I didn't say anything to her & she didn't say anything to me. She's maybe nine or ten? She's my little brother's kid, & he & I aren't close, so there's no reason or expectation that I'd be close with his kids.

I worked with an Emily in Austin, but she didn't even come say goodbye to me when I left - we weren't more than co-workers.

I kissed an Emily once, but we lost touch a long time ago. I think she tried to get in touch with me a few years back, but I waited too long to respond & it fell through the cracks. In any event, neither of us seems to need each other in our respective lives, so most probably at some point we'll connect through Facebook & continue not speaking to each other.

None of these Emilys are the reason for tomorrow's Self Help Radio. It's just fun to make a show with songs about a certain someone, & at some point I noticed a lot of songs about an Emily in a lot of musicians' lives. I am actually grateful I don't have an Emily buzzing around me - if I did, she'd probably think the show was for her specifically. It isn't. It's for every Emily in the world equally.

Are you an Emily? If you are, & you'd like a CD of the songs I'll play on the show, write me & I'll send you one. Like I did for the Bills of the world summer before last. I'm good like that - & it's my way of saying thanks for letting me celebrate your name.

Preface To Emily's Show: What's All This About Emily Dickinson & "The Yellow Rose Of Texas"?

According to Wikipedia (on this page) the song "The Yellow Rose Of Texas" is "a traditional folk song which has long been popular in the United States & is considered an unofficial state song of Texas. The actual author is unknown; the original publisher (Firth, Pond & Co.) only stated that it was composed & arranged expressly for Charles H. Brown by 'J.K.' [...] The soundtrack to the TV miniseries James A. Michener's Texas dates a version of the song to 1927 & co-credits the authorship thereof to Gene Autry. However, Don George ('I'm Beginning to See the Light') reworked the original version of the song, which Mitch Miller made into a popular recording 1955."

Emily Dickinson was of course the reclusive 19th century New England poet whose morbid sing-song poems are the easiest thing to memorize in high school English class. But did you know that most if not all of her poems (which were mainly written in what is called "common meter" by snobby poets) can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose Of Texas"? I learned that in high school just like you did, & this page has a midi file to compare, while this page explains that this is possible because of oh so common meter. Emily Dickinson & television! The nerve!

If you don't know "The Yellow Rose Of Texas," don't worry - most folks know the melody more than the words, & that includes most Texans. A lot of them would be shocked by the minstrel lyrics, which begin "There's a yellow rose in Texas that I am going to see/No other darkey knows her, no darkey only me."

Something I had never heard of is added on the Wikipedia page: "A twentieth century myth has turned the Yellow Rose into one Emily D. West, a housekeeper in a hotel in New Washington, Texas, during the Texas Revolution." It's of course unlikely, but what a coincidence for this week's show!

When Is A Vacation Not A Vacation?

I can't tell you, but I can show you. Just look back over the last five or six days of my life...

I am back in Huntington, not terribly rested & smelling like airport disinfectant. It turns out - did I tell you this already? - I will be premiering Self Help Radio (& its current sister-show Sugar Substitute) as three hours of morning offerings starting this Wednesday at 6am on 88.1 WMUL. Of course, you have to be in the tri-state area to hear the shows live, but I will post them to selfhelpradio.net as soon as I catch up on the sleep I miss getting up at 6am (!) to do a show. For the time being, Sugar Substitute will start off at 6am & Self Help Radio will stumble along ninety minutes later.

I am thinking - maybe you have some input - of doing another show on alternate weeks with Sugar Substitute that plays electronica. What do you think? I don't know what to think. I don't think I know what to think. You think?

Regular blog posting begins again tomorrow. I've missed you. If only you told me where you lived, I could have sent you postcards. Or text messages. Or little hearts with arrows through them on crinkly candy wrappers.

Some Things To Do Before The Vacation

It's true, I don't know where Self Help Radio will end up on the WMUL schedule in a couple of weeks. But I can't worry about that. I gotta get back to Texas to help my mother celebrate her 80th birthday! & knowing her, I'm going to designated driver all weekend long.

I'll let you know about the show's fate when I do, but until then, surely you can enjoy yesterday's show (theme: "Run!") available now at selfhelpradio.net, as well as the sixth episode of the pop show Sugar Substitute (theme: deliciousness) also available there.

If I see you in Dallas & Austin, I'll see you there. Expect a little radio silence for ten days or so - not from the radio, just from me. I may pop in every once in a while to say hey - & to tell you where Self Help Radio lands on the 88.1 schedule.

Now go, listen to those shows. I have to pack.

On Your Markers...

Hey! Yeah, you! Do you live in Huntington, West Virginia? Do you or anyone you know have access to a radio? Do you know how to turn it on? To adjust the volume to a level at which your ears are comfortable? Do you know how to tune it to a particular frequency? Yeah? Hey! Can you tell time? It doesn't matter if it's digital or uses an hour hand & a minute hand - any type of clock will do. You can? Swell! When it's three o'clock (big hand pointing to the top of the clock, little hand at a right angle pointing to the right) (or 3:00 on a digital clock) (if it's military time, it'll be 1500 hours), you can tune your radio to 88.1 fm. That's WMUL Huntington. You can listen to today's episode of Self Help Radio. That's right! The theme is "run!" Wait - I didn't mean for you to... Nertz.

Okay, you - do you live in Huntington, West Virginia? No? Do you have a computer? Is it connected to the internet? Yes? Do you know how to use a web browser? Yes? Super! Some time tomorrow - you can check back here if you like - you can listen to today's show at selfhelpradio.net! Isn't that great? It'll be the same theme because it's the same show. Just recorded. It's like science fiction of the nineteen-thirties only it's eighty years later & it's real!

This'll be the last Self Help Radio for a couple of weeks, so do tune in if you can, or listen online when you can. It not only makes you a better citizen, it entertains you in a grand old style. It's true!

Whither Run!?

in the auld database, where there are data saved, information about a musical collection gathered over many years, consisting of many media, vinyl, digital, compressed & uncompressed, scattered & strewn, the clever music maven begins to note similarities of title & theme, tiered & alphabetized handily, not coincidental, but in convenient blocks, lines of repeated words which signify not cover songs but originals.

"Run" is a song title. There are dozens!

"Run Run" is another song title. Only a few of these. Why?

"Run Run Run" is yet another song title. Many more of these.

Something like a spark ignites the tinder-quality gray matter in the deejay's song-soaked head. "A show!" thinks he, "A show with songs only titled "Run!" & "Run Run!" & "Run, Run Run!"

The gauntlet is thrown. The disparate, yet homogeneously named, tracks are gathered, listened to, arranged.

Another Self Help Radio is thus born!

Preface To Run!: A Wide History Of Flat Feet

I never knew I had flat feet until the girlfriend/wife (sometime either before or after the marriage, but I don't remember when, so I err on the side of calling her both although she cannot for whatever reason be both) pointed it out to me on some occasion with some surprise. I suppose she had never really looked at my feet before. She seemed startled. I was a little embarrassed.

She's an anatomist, so I take her observation as fact.

I hoped I had flat feet when I was a lad because I had heard that flat feet disqualifies you for military service. I didn't want to serve the military. I wouldn't have liked the killing or, on another level, the showering with other men. I wondered how one could fake flat feet, but decided instead on being a conscientious objector, although later research showed that you really, really had to prove you hated war. No spending the entire conflict with the Quakers for me!

However, since 20 to 30 percent of the population have flat feet, it would be moronic for the military to refuse those afflicted with this condition. They've even done studies about it, probably more to assuage old officers who believe in old officers' wives' tales, than to find proof of disqualification. However, it must be said, I have more or less well flat feet, while some folks with flat feet are in a lot of pain. Damn you fallen arches! How can you be so cruel?

Yet I run. I run free! My flat feet, my flat right foot, my flat left foot, & me.