What Did You Get For Christmas?

I got a rock.

Twas The Night Before The Night Before Christmas...

& I just got an email that had the subject "she tugs the shit out of his cock & he fucking loves it!" Ah, 'tis the season!

Well, you can listen to "A Very Self Help Radio Christmas" & a Christmas episode of Dickenbock Electronics with you & yours (or alone, like I will, with a loaded gun & bottle of Jameson) now on the Self Help Radio website. It's guaranteed to clear the house of family visitors when they're outstaying their welcome.

Please have a safe & happy season & thanks for listening to Self Help Radio. It's the best gift I get all year round.

X-Must

Do you remember the first time you were strangely yelled at for referring to Christmas as "X-Mas"? I do, actually. I was working in a 7-11 on the late shift (11-7, if you must know) during my third year of college (so, twenty years ago) & there was a very tall, very cute, frizzy-haired hippie girl who'd come in to shoot the shit with me (& get free stuff, because she flirted with me), & her name was Monet. For reals! I think I even once asked to see her ID, & it was her real name.

I don't remember working there past Christmas of 1989, but at some point I surely must have been behind the counter when there was something - a plea for donations on a plastic container, a magazine, some sign from the management - that read "X-Mas," & Monet came in, like she did, late at night, quite drunk, wanting some soda from the soda fountain or something, & she saw the "X-Mas" sign & went ballistic. "They're trying to take the Christ out of Christmas!" she yelled at me. "I hate that!" & in that drunken way drunk folks have when they're pretty drunk, Monet expounded on her theory, surprising me because I just didn't know that tall, frizzy-haired, cute hippie girls who came into 7-11s on weekend nights as drunk as priests could be religious as well.

Did I tell her that the X really means Christ as it is based on the Greek spelling of the name? Nah. I didn't know that then. I didn't really care. Even though I was madly in love with the woman I was dating at the time, I appreciated cute chicks spending time with me, even under ridiculous circumstances.

Maybe I'll tell this story & others equally goofy tomorrow at 1pm on WMUL - 88.1 fm in Huntington - & later on of course archived on selfhelpradio.net - for my annual Christmas show, called (of course) a Very Self Help Radio Christmas. Do tune in. You know Monet won't be.

Whither A Very Self Help Radio Christmas 2009?

Indeed. At this point in the festivities it's important to stop & take stock. Ask a few questions. Digest & commiserate.

The young lady with the bulldog in the back wants to know what she will be getting for Christmas. While this is certainly not within the purview of this discussion, the panel might agree that if she is so impatient at this point, the chances are she will not be satisfied with what she does get, even if it's of equal or greater value than her bulldog.

The oblique triangle on the left side of the auditorium asks how one can reconcile the birth of one religion's savior with the ritualistic murder of another religion's children for Satan. If you'll recall the earlier lecture by Professor Gobble about the nature of cognitive dissonance, I'm sure you can draw a valid or possibly relevant conclusion.

The aging blues guitarist in the second row has not apparently asked a question, but suffice it to say that he was born into poverty, & sometime during his hardscrabble life he became infected with a chronic disease which was diagnosed as the blues, some of the symptoms of which are being betrayed by the women he's loved, possessing an unquenchable thirst to ramble, & witnessing depressing imitation by slightly overweight middle-class white men with questionable facial hair arrangements.

Ah, the jolly fellow in red with all the reindeer is reminding us to get home to listen to Christmas music on the radio. Very well. Thank you for attending & please leave your badges with Sheila at the door. Good night.

Preface To A Very Self Help Radio Christmas 2009: The Last Christmas Show Ever?

I'm an old dude, in the middle of my middle age, & I don't have children unless you count dogs & cats which you shouldn't because they think I'm one of their pets. Also important is that I'm not a Christian, & the wife & I don't really exchange presents even on birthdays (sometimes we do, though - I bought her a Wii for her birthday this year & her reaction was "Damn! Now I have to buy you a birthday present!" - so it's a dodgy proposition in any case). I point out all this to underscore something big - I don't really celebrate Christmas. Haven't for a long time - except on Self Help Radio, where I've done a Christmas show since the first year I was on. So why continue to do a Christmas show?

I dunno. I still love Christmas music - I especially love it when it's weird or non-traditional. I also like when artists I like write their own Christmas songs. But I do feel like a hypocrite - I don't want to celebrate the birthday of an imaginary space god's son & I don't want to open presents with nor buy presents for a family I don't have. Is loving the music enough? It doesn't seem like enough... What do you think?

Or are you too busy on the chatty blogs arguing about health care reform? Bastards!

The Novelty Wears On

People tell me I'll get tired of it, but the snow fell for a second time in Huntington (it started falling last night & as of this morning it hasn't stopped), & it's kinda dreamy & lovely. Here, you can see for yourself:



There might even be a white Christmas here this year. I think I may go walk around & fall down in it in a little while.

The Final Death Of The "Best Of" List

Oh don't I wish. It might be a more honest world if people listed their "favorites" but then what would the music snobs do? Besides continue to talk about how much better music sounds on vinyl, I mean.

Hey! This week's show is my favorite indie music, etc., from 2009. You can listen to it at the usual place, which is selfhelpradio.net. Compare it with your own list of favorites, if you make one. When you make one. Will you make one?

On a sad note, this week's Sugar Substitute, which kind of continued my favorites, didn't make it into the recording device I use to save my shows for posterity. I think it was user error, with me being the user. & the error. Sorry about that.

Did you know - did I tell you - you can become a fan of Self Help Radio on Facebook? If you didn't, I'm glad I told you. If you did, I'm embarrassed I said anything. Oh when will this nightmare end?!?

Know What I Hate? Know What I Love?

I could write a daily blog about the "joke of the day" service I subscribe to. They try so hard to be non-offensive that they have a special word (which I can't remember, but it's a made-up race/nationality/belief system) they insert instead of saying, you know, as they would at UT, "How many Aggies does it take..." My brain keeps telling me it's "archon," but I think that's a race in Star Trek. It makes it doubly adorable when the occasional racist joke oozes through. However, what annoys me is the jokes that involve some kind of pun. Whenever there's a joke like that, they SPELL OUT the pun. For example, if the pun is "Eileen Dover" they'd write "(I leaned over)" next to it. As if their subscribers might just go "Heck, I don't git it!" & angrily unsubscribe.

Here's today's so-called joke: "The olympian skier Picabo Street now works in the Intensive Care Unit at a hospital. Unfortunately, the administration told her she can no longer answer the phone, because this is what she said, 'Picabo ICU' (Peek-a-boo, I see you)."

I had never heard of Picabo Street so I probably wouldn't know how to pronounce the name (I might pronounce it pick-AH-bo) but I would probably have guessed from the ICU that it was supposed to be a pun. But they fucked up the punchline! It's more funny if they say something like, "She kept answering the phone..." Bad grammar AND they spell the dumb joke out. Ak! I hate that!

Okay, that's what I hate. What I love is of course doing Self Help Radio, which, I remind you, airs as it normally does tomorrow on 88.1 fm WMUL but at the afternoon hour of 1pm rather than in the morning. There's a reason for it & I might already have explained it, but anyway, it features my favorite indie music of 2009, & Sugar Substitute, after that, features the spillover, so it's basically three hours of awesome 2009 music.

Aren't it Huntington? No problem! It'll be on selfhelpradio.net later in the day. We take care of you. Silly.

Whither Gary's Favorite Indie Music 2009?

I said a mouthful yesterday. It stands. It was a nice year for music - I am happy with crazy nice discoveries, like the Wave Pictures, plus continuing excellence like Bearsuit. Also, what a year for my friends in Luxuriator! An appearance of KVRX's Local Live as well as a debut single. In not too long, they'll be riding around in limousines & throwing burning money at me.

It's Monday evening & I'm still reviewing records from the year - I am a little fearful that I'm leaving something out because I don't have enough things in my miserable life to stress out about. Hey! Last year I missed a Guild League record & a Secret History EP that would easily have made my best of. Think I'm going to let that happen again? Okay, I might, but can I at least let it happen while I'm trying as best I can to keep it from happening? I mean, I know I'm inept, but it's easier to be actively inept than simply lazy. Y'know?

I'm not going to give you any hints about what'll be on the show, no, but I suspect you have a sense of what the show will contain. So be patient. It's less than forty-eight hours away.

What? Less than forty-eight hours? Holy fuck, I've got to go listen to music!

Preface To Gary's Favorite Indie Music Of 2009: What Kind Of Man Reads Year-End Lists?

Oh yes, & it's not just the end of the year. It's the end of the decade, which means a cottage industry in "best of the 2000s" lists, though I'm not going to link to them, because frankly virtually none of the songs & musicians that end up on these lists can be seen or found on my lists. You might think it's because I simply have different tastes than the makers of these lists, who are generally the people who are paid to be critical of music. But that's not true. Listen:

Most of these lists are made by people who are paid to be critical of music. Where do the people who are paid to be critical of music get the music they are paid to be critical of? Record companies, of course. For free. They're not clicking on myspace pages to find "the next big thing." They spend less on music than your average illegal downloader, these people who are paid to be critical of music. So it's only natural that they review & choose from the records they get for free. Do you think small record companies - not to mention bands that don't have labels or maintain their own - can afford to send every person who is paid to be critical of music a free record? & can you imagine how those people who are paid to be critical of music treat the records that come in a plain wrappers as opposed to those which come in lavish, expensive packages?

Ah, but don't these people who are paid to be critical of music also review live bands? Sure. But generally if they go out to see a band somewhere it's usually a band they've been introduced to by a record company, or it's a band there's a "buzz" around or that's been "recommended" by someone (perhaps a record company representative). People who are paid to be critical of music don't really have the time to listen to as much music as possible to make an informed decision. So you can bet that they haven't heard 99% of what's been created & released in any given year.

They also need to pay attention to what the listeners are listening to. This, it turns out, is worse than simply choosing from the best of the pile of the less than 1% of what's been released that year which is given away by record companies to the people who are paid to be critical of music. Because the majority of people who listen to music, for good or ill, listen to music they hear on commercial radio, which is owned by the media giants who also own the record companies, so are geared to selling as much as possible of the artists (the term used loosely) who can make them the most money possible. Many of those artists, of course, are the same artists they've "invested" in, with expensive laser concert shows & videos, & for whom they've spent millions on fancy producers & fancy studios in which to record. It's only natural that, at best, a couple dozen of these rise to the top & make a splash. A few even hang on.

In any event, most "best of" lists are basically popularity contests, & that popularity (like with the Grammys) is often based on units sold. The majority of the "voters" (ie, the listening public) buy the stuff they hear on commercial radio, & the people who are paid to be critical of music review the stuff sent to them by the record companies which are controlled by the same people who own the radio, & each "best of" list is corrupted by hazily-seen forces of laziness, vanity & greed.

I prefer to instead list my favorites, since they're bound not to be your favorites, whether you actively seek out new music in the same way I do or simply listen to the radio waiting for something to interest you (which will happen, as the record companies know, when you've listened to something at least five times & it becomes familiar to your brain) or somewhere in between. You should love the music you love in whatever way you wish to love it. Just please, don't be influenced by these lists, which can't possibly be the best of anything because the majority of the people making the lists - especially the people who are paid to be critical of music - have simply no interest in listening to the spectrum of music out there. The media giants that stroke them keep them happily ignorant of the amazing musical world around them, & they make sure between them they get as close to all of the music-consuming public's money as possible.

A Brief History Of Lactation

Lactation is the secretion of milk (unflavored, & also not soy) from mammary glands. It is a process that occurs in all female mammals whether they like it or not. Usually it happens with the involvement of something that is very naughtily called the "nipple." However among platypuses it was decided at a meeting of the Conservative Platypuses of Australia (CPA) that that simply would not do & now they excrete milk primarily through their abdomen which makes perfect sense in the grand old style. By the way the excommunication of the male Dayak fruit bat for crimes pertaining to male lactation remains in full force. Scientists take note! You wouldn't want any of your precious email leaked now, would you?

Lactation as has been widely noted is a biological process & that's why it makes schoolchildren giggle. Also college students. If you really want to make them laugh, discuss in great detail galactorrhea, which isn't really a big problem but sounds enough like diarrhea to encourage mirth. In recent years however lactation has come under fire by the baby formula industry (now controlled by Halliburton & Montsanto, whose production of petroleum-based, genetically-modified-for-deliciousness infant enhancement juice will replaced mother's milk among most American mutants & zombies, & also the poor, by the year 2020) & has been discredited as an outdated practice mainly used by hippies, pagans, & the grossly uninformed. The grossly uniformed have been unfortunately implicated in this as well, but they are entirely innocent, except of course in regards to fashion crimes. Please learn to spell. Spellcheck isn't always right.

Lactation Liberation being a natural development to ridiculous forces acting in the real world, the shadowy world government under Supreme Leader Sarah Palin has begun replacing real mammalian breasts with artificial ones. To show their support, many women have chosen to support plastic surgery in any nearby mammal, which may explain where your Italian greyhound went, you know. Everyone told you to get her spayed but you were all like "But what if I want to breed her?" & now it's just too fucking bad you were such a selfish asshole & when your canine pal is returned to you she won't be the same & it's all your damn fault. No, don't whine to me. Too fucking bad for you.

What does the future hold for lactation? Only a young child nursing at his mother's teat knows for sure. By the way, is anyone out there as uncomfortable as I am when comedians talk about missing being breast-fed? I know the joke is that they enjoy breasts so much & have from an early age, but aren't they talking about their mothers' breasts? If you extrapolate it out, you know. It's like they are admitting to something incestuous, like they're attracted to their moms, & that kind of grosses me out. People get into fights about that sort of thing, right? "Dude, you're attracted to your mom." "Don't be talking about my mom like that!" Punch, bleed. It just seems like those comedians - they know who they are - are making jokes that they themselves would be horrified by if they really thought about it. Ick.

What Is Favorite If Not The Electronica?

I ask you.

I answer you: despite interesting snafu-lation (at about 6:12am, the power went off at the station for 20 seconds, leaving me a little confused & literally in the dark) & strange noises coming from my belly (what did it want? will I ever know?) there were three hours of 2009-flavored electronica on WMUL today & it was awesome.

Don't believe me? It is surely an easy matter to check for yourself: both this week's episode of Self Help Radio & Dickenbock Electronics is available for your listening to pleasure at selfhelpradio.net, where they should be. Shouldn't you also be?

I thought as much.

Time & Date Dot Com

Anyone who's ever seen me stand up & talk to people & want to plan something but be completely unaware of the date will know that I love timeanddate.com. It makes a calendar for you! It tells you what day the Landing Of The 33 Patriots will be in 2010! (It's a Monday! No school for Uruguayans!) It tells you that next year's Day Of Liberation in Norway falls on a Saturday so you know some fish will be smoked that night! & in Hong Kong (& anywhere else they celebrate it) the Dragon Boat Festival will be on a Wednesday next June, so you totally get a day off in the middle of the week! That's awesome!

One thing that would make timeanddate.com better would be if they also broke down individual days so you'd know when something cool was happening. Like, if you went to West Virginia on Wednesday, December 9, 2009, you'd see at 6am "Dickenbock Electronics" airs on 88.1 fm WMUL in Huntington, & then at 7:30am, Self Help Radio airs on the same station. Maybe if it got a little more detailed, it could predict when I played certain songs & when I did airbreaks. Wow! That would make putting the show together a lot easier for me!

But you can't. That's sad. It doesn't mean I don't still love timeanddate.com, but it does mean I don't love them as much as I could. & it's their own fault. Sad frowny face.

Whither Gary's Favorite Electronica 2009?

This is a short puzzle about Wilder, the loneliest robot. It takes place in your immediate future.

Preferably use the commercial (not the non-commercial, home-made) version of Wilder, the loneliest robot. Recommended models include: Heterosexual Wilder, Subway Token Taking Wilder, Wilder With New Bass Guitar Attachment, Senator Wilder Of Circuitsvania. Using a Plain Brown Wilder is acceptable but may not withstand the scorching heat in step seven below.

After several long conversations with your spiritual adviser of choice or, if you have no supernatural beliefs, with your bartender &/or cats, please enclose a self-addressed envelope stamp in a moderately comfortable billowy undergarment. Shake nervously. Sidelong glances, as always, are inappropriate but understandable.

With winter on the way, it's a good idea to check or change your antifreeze, not necessarily in that order.

Some women prefer wine, while some men prefer women. Seventeen revered statisticians (all with the letter 'e' in their names at least seven times) take such tidbits of data & write long, lengthy, several-paged abstracts about concrete ideas. In any given sample, then, someone is bound to use the word "literally" incorrectly, & of that a subset will use it laughably. Not a one, not even in sarcastic places like Buffalo, New York, or Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, will use it ironically.

When someone mentions bonfires, which they will at some point if precautions are not taken, & they are not, then the choices you previously had dwindle to merely several, or perhaps just a few. Stand firm, & tell the story of Timmy, the odiferous ocelot, & his above-ground adventures with the Whisker Gang. These stories get more entertaining as more gasoline is huffed, but that shouldn't be necessary unless someone wants to burn rock & roll records.

Viola! You've made Wilder, the loneliest robot, cry! & that's how electronic music was born!

Preface To Gary's Favorite Electronica 2009: Can You Give Us A Hint What To Expect?

Yes, it was a wonderful year for electronical music. I've been happily doing a biweekly show called "Dickenbock Electronics" on WMUL since late September (you can listen to those shows over at selfhelpradio.net) & it's made me focus a little more on electronica than maybe I normally would have, but I did compile a list last week of my favorite electronic records of the year & it was - shall we say - a bit unweildy. It contained the following artists:

Ametsub, Autoclav1.1, Keef Baker, Bibio, The Boats, Boxcutter, Cheju, Christ, Clark, Cybo, Demdike, The Exaltics, Exile, Falty DL, The Field, Flica, Ghosts On Tape, Jon Hopkins, Infinite Scale, Jega, Kettel, Phil Kieran, King Cannibal, Legowelt, Lullatone, Lusine, Melodium, Monolake, Nosaj Thing, Ochre, Prefuse 73, Rustie, Saycet, Shackleton, Shpongle, Stendeck, 10-20, Luke Vibert, Paul White & Zomby

Of course I still need to whittle it down - a lot of them just won't make the final cut. But wow! Isn't it nice to be able to choose rather than say "oh, golly, I need another song... what didn't suck too much?"

It was a very nice year for electronica, it's true.

Ah, Snow!

I'm inside this chilly morning going over all the wonderful electronic music made this year for this week's show, while outside it looks a little like this:



It's quite lovely.

A Birthday The Whole Year Round

Well, you made it through another birthday. Or did you? Did your nearest & dearest forget? Or worse yet, did they remember, & all you got was some insubstantial gift on Facebook? Do you think you deserve better? Well, Self Help Radio does too!

That's why the scientists & circus clowns at Self Help Radio have developed a Birthday Show (tm) which can be listened to all year around! Since the shows are simply songs about birthdays (even if specific people's birthdays are discussed within) the listener can think to him, her or itself, "Say! Self Help Radio cared enough about me to do an entire radio show about my birthday! Gee!"

In certain states of the United States & at least four different places in Canada, having a birthday mix prepared for you would cost you at the very least a half-pint of blood & a DNA swab quickly shared with authorities, but not this birthday mix! It's available whenever your computer is on & connected to the internet at Self Help Radio Dot Net. This award-desirous website also contains other radio shows (like this week's episode of Sugar Substitute) which may have greater appeal to you & can easily be considered birthday gifts if you aren't completely satisfied &/or think you deserve more gifts.

If you act now, or any time in the next couple of months at least, you can even listen to Last Year's Self Help Radio Birthday Show, which has believe it entirely different songs about birthdays, so you're not getting the same damn tie or pair of electric socks you get every year.

Happy birthday from Self Help Radio! Don't say we never got you anything!

The Classic Birthday Gift

I just typed into Google "the classic birthday gift" in quotes. Here's what I got:

birthdaypresent.org.uk (which seems to be a placeholder) called flowers "the classic birthday gift."

tikisurf.co.uk called socks "the classic birthday gift."

1888orchids.com had a "classic birthday gift basket." What's in it? "Ghirardelli dark & milk chocolate, Godiva creme brulee dessert chocolate with layers of butterscotch caramel & vanilla cream in a milk chocolate shell, Portlock smoked salmon (ugh), assorted Lindt Lindor dark & milk chocolate truffles, sesame breadsticks, Godiva dark chocolate covered pretzels & almonds, Italian hazelnut chocolate, peanut brittle, olives, serving dish, cheese knife & more." & more? Peanut brittle & olives? Doesn't that sound like the title of a Ween album?

suzisshabbydecor.com didn't have a classic birthday gift, but they did have a "classic birthday gift" BAG, for you to put your classic birthday gift into. What does the classic birthday gift bag contain? "One large bag, one small bag, twenty-six inches of grosgrain ribbon, twenty-six more inches of printer grosgrain ribbon, a written description of what grosgrain is, seven embellished 3D stickers, four sheets of tissue paper, two sheets of printed paper, & two decorative tags." Classy!

I personally think the classic birthday gift is a Wii. But that's just me.

Meanwhile, tomorrow, at 6am, a new Sugar Substitute, & at 7:30am, a new Self Help Radio. Live on 88.1 WMUL & archived later in the day at selfhelpradio.net of course.

Whither Magda's Birthday Show 2009?

Sing! Sing, like a totem pole!
Dance! Dance, like an ornery cuss!
Sigh! Sigh, like a dinner roll!
Applaud! Applaud, like a school bus!

For we're celebrating Magda's birthday!
Yes we're agitating for Magda's birthday!
It happens this time every year
& it's she we hold dear
So we're actuating Magda's birthday!

I said
Scream! Scream, like a winter's day!
Twirl! Twirl, like a dog before sleep!
Drink! Drink, like a drunken bouquet!
Wiggle! Wiggle, like in REM sleep!

For we're celebrating Magda's birthday!
Yes we're congratulating Magda for her birthday!
(Though it's not technically her fault)
& it's she we exalt
So we're accelerating towards Magda's birthday!

One more time
Laugh! Laugh, like a hobo in sunlight!
Buzz! Buzz, like electrical fires!
Zip! Zap, like a space-age gunfight!
Smolder! Smolder, like all your desires!

For we're celebrating Magda's birthday!
Yes we're collaborating on Magda's birthday!
She thinks she doesn't deserve it
But we'll still observe it
We're implicating ourselves in Magda's birthday!

Preface To Magda's Birthday 2009: You Can Ask Again - Why Is This Particular Birthday So Damn Special?

I married a girl named Magda. I sort of but not really recommend it. First, if you marry the same girl as I did, she could go to jail as a bigamist, even if she thinks she's being really cool & living the polyandrous life, which is the same thing & just as illegal. Second, Magdalena (which is the long-playing version of Magda) (but not the extended remix, which is so damned long it would fill this entire blog with disco lights & jazz hands) is a name from the Bible, referring to Mary Magdalene, who, according to the Bible Of Wikipedia, was like this:

"Mary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala is described, both in the canonical New Testament & in the New Testament apocrypha, as one of the most important women in the movement of Jesus. Mary was one of women who accompanied Jesus during his travels, following him to the end. According to all four Gospels in the Christian New Testament, she was the first to witness his resurrection."

That seems cool, doesn't it? But wait! Why wouldn't that be a cool thing for a (Christian) person to want to name his or her offspring? Because Mary Magdalene is widely considered to be a repentant prostitute. That's right. You heard me! My wife's parents named her after a former prostitute. What were they thinking?

I have only met a few Polish folks in my life, & most of them are my wife's family, & I feel like I keep hearing the same names over & over - but like I said, I only know the few that I've met through the wife. Looking at this page of common Polish names, it occurs to me that my wife's parents could just as easily have named her Agnieszka or Brygida or Cecylia or Dorota or Emiliana or Franciszka or Genowefa or Jacinta or Ivona or Justyna or Katarzyna or Lucja or Malgorzata or Olga or Pelagia or Rozalia or Stefania or Czeslawa or Urzula or Waclawa or Zofia rather than have her name be associated with the exact profession (even worse than stripper!) that a parent does not want his or her daughter to adopt - redemption or not!

That's okay, though, because names don't determine one's fate, despite what the Kabalarians think. (They say this, about the name Gary: "This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, & success, as well as cause health weaknesses or accidents to the head, worry & mental tension." Uncanny! I do have health weaknesses of the head!) She became who she was by successfully & utterly ignoring the Bible, & so should you.

It's a lovely name. I've changed my mind. But she still can't marry you as long as she's married to me.