Huzzah! My Second Monday Night Show!

- I think last week's show went all right, didn't you?
- Guess so.
- What, didn't you listen?
- It's on kinda late.
- You were going to stay up late to watch Craig Ferguson anyway.
- I can record that.
- I record my show too! It's up at selfhelpradio.net!
- Yeah, but listening to it after it's already been on, it's like, the moment's lost.
- Wait, what about Craig Ferguson? You tape that show!
- Sure, but it's not live. It's already on tape.
- Hold on. You'd listen to recordings of my shows if they were pre-taped but not if they're recorded live?
- Of course. It's meant to be heard live.
- Do you feel that way about live albums?
- I never thought about it.
- I think you're talking through your ass.
- Hey! No need to get grumpy. I'll listen to your stupid show.
- You will?
- I'll listen to it live, sure.
- That's awesome! Thanks!
- When is it on again?
- Tonight at midnight on 88.1 fm WMUL Huntington.
- All right then.
- I'll record it anyway, just in case.
- Whatever.

Whither Girlfriends On Valentine's Day 2010?

First of all, I am perfectly aware that Valentine's Day is a week away. I have to do the show before Valentine's Day, you know? Otherwise it's just weird. "Yesterday was Valentine's Day & here's the show I would've done..." That would be moronic. Although I can totally see myself doing it. In fact, I may start doing Halloween shows in late November.

Where was I? Oh yeah. See, Valentine's Day is a full six days (or, really, five days & twenty-one hours, but I rounded up) from when the show airs, so while it might seem early, it seriously could only be earlier by maybe a few hours. Otherwise it'd be an entire week away & then I'd just have the show on Valentine's Day. Or would I? Because maybe it'd be midnight on Valentine's Day, & that would be the same as doing it the day after.

Now my head hurts. You want to see the themes I've done in the past for Valentine's Day, just for poops & grins?

VDay 2003: Valentine's Day (generally)
VDay 2004: Love
VDay 2005: Hate
VDay 2006: (cancelled due to burned-down radio station)
VDay 2007: Crushes
VDay 2008: Jealousy
VDay 2009: Boyfriends

"Girlfriends" seemed a natural choice for this year. Who knows what's next?

Don't get ahead of yourself! We've got to survive this Valentine's Day first.

Preface To Valentine's Day 2010: If I Was Your Girlfriend

I'm pretty astonished how short some people are. Like Prince, who wrote the queer tune I won't be playing on this week's show, which I am quoting above. He is five foot two. Which was (some folks say) how tall Napoleon was. & of course there are a lot of similarities between the two, & yes, I am talking about Prince's continuing aggression against Prussians. He won't be happy till he plows through them toward Russia.

Bowie seems shorter than five foot ten, but that's what his official bio says. But official bios can be faked. & I think Bowie has faked his. I don't think he's taller than five six. He's certainly not taller than Bob Dylan, who's about five eight.

All these people I mention are also famously scrawny. Leonard Cohen (whose bio says he's five nine) claimed that, during the writing of "Beautiful Losers," he took so much speed he got down to 85 pounds. Christian Bale, who's about as tall as I am, got down to 121 pounds for The Machinist, & he looked like he simply couldn't lose any more weight. Could Cohen be five nine & get that emaciated? I doubt it.

By the way, the average height of the American male is five eight. The average weight is 189 pounds.

Yes, there will be no Prince on Self Help Radio this week, nor really any time soon. That's what I was going to say because I had to listen to that nonsense song again in case it was better than I remembered. Does anyone know when or if Prince was going to get his adenoids taken care of?

Index

I wanted to get in the habit of writing in this blog five days a week for the new schedule (Self Help Radio was recently moved to Mondays at midnight), which should look something like this:

FRIDAY: Pants are buttoned slowly, for maximum sensual effect.
SATURDAY: Soft music is played as Barry White's ghost nods approvingly in a creepy but sexy way.
SUNDAY: The lights are dimmed & no one's none the wiser.
MONDAY: Slow motion shot of a train entering a tunnel.
TUESDAY: A disapproving look from the landlady as we order out for pizza looking sweaty & disheveled.

Wait. What? That's like some bizarre porn thing with the days of the week attached to it! That's not a schedule at all! However, I have seen that movie, though I confess I've never acted in it.

All right, here's the blog entry schedule:

FRIDAY: Grow worse.
SATURDAY: Die.
SUNDAY: Get buried.
MONDAY: Get born.
TUESDAY: Get christened.

Hold it, hold it. That's just what happens to Solomon Grundy in that poem, only screwed around to "start" on Friday & missing Wednesday & Thursday.

All right. Let's get this right. Here's the schedule:

FRIDAY: In love.
SATURDAY: Wait.
SUNDAY: Comes too late.
MONDAY: Blue.
TUESDAY: Grey.

Ack! Those are the descriptions of the days in the Cure song "Friday I'm In Love"! Which reminds me, one of these days I'm totally going to do a show that has nothing but songs that go through the days of the week.

But that has absolutely nothing to do with how this blog will be organized. Can we get that right now, please?

FRIDAY: Nonsense?
SATURDAY: Preface to this week's coming nonsense.
SUNDAY: Whither this week's coming nonsense?
MONDAY: Listen live to my nonsense!
TUESDAY: Okay, then, listen to my recorded nonsense!

That's about right.

I've Got A New Hat!

That's not true. I got a hat that someone owned before me! I got a nused hat! Or is it a newsed hat? In any event, it's certified pre-owned!

If only it were a fedora. But it's not. It's not a sombrero, either, which wouldn't make sense in West Virginia, especially at their embarrassing "Mexican" restaurants. My god, has no one here ever heard of a jalapeño?

It's luckily not what they call a "gimme" cap. They also call those types of caps "trucker caps" & "feed caps," the latter of which sounds more interesting than "gimme cap." "Feed cap" also sounds like some kind of diet plan, as in "thirty-seven oreos is your feed cap, fatty."

More interesting than my new hat, though, even with the lice, is that this week's episode of Self Help Radio, the theme of which is "twilight," & which has (do I protest too much?) nothing to do with Mormons or vampires or repressed homosexuality or any combination thereof. Babe.

It's over at selfhelpradio.net for your listening glee. Also, this week's episode of Dickenbock Electronics is there as well. Please enjoy.

No, it's not a top hat. Nor a cowboy hat. Keep guessing! I need to shampoo with special medicine now.

Huzzah! My First Monday Night Show!

In case you've not been paying attention, or you were paying attention but no one said anything, or you were paying attention but couldn't give half a solid shit, Self Help Radio was moved from Wednesday mornings at seven-thirty to Monday nights at midnight.

I am excited about it, but there's a nagging voice to my right (my dog Winston) telling me, "Why be so excited? Isn't it a demotion?"

Must everything be promotion or demotion? Isn't there such a thing as a lateral move? Sure there is! There are even articles on the computer with titles like Making A Lateral Career Move: The Pros & Cons. I may not know what a lateral move is, but I can be certain it's neither a demotion nor a promotion so I don't have to question why Self Help Radio was moved & instead go with the flow.

I mean, what could be bad about being on at midnight? Here are two indisputable sets of facts:

At 7:30am, most people weren't awake. At midnight, most people aren't awake.
At 7:30am, the people who are awake are groggy & need coffee. At midnight, the people who are awake are drunk & need coffee.

I could go on, but now I'm thinking I'll need some coffee tonight or maybe I myself won't be listening.

So huzzah! Self Help Radio live in Huntington on 88.1 fm at midnight, archived tomorrow on the line at selfhelpradio.net!

Whither Twilight?

It's no secret that I am controlled by a shadowy world government slash offshore corporation with ties to organized crime & Jihadist insurgents all over the globe & also in Texas. But what remains a secret is the manner by which the themes which are featured on the Self Help Radio get suggested, vetted, chosen & approved. Did three of those last options mean about the same thing? Never mind. Finally, here, on this blog, will this secret be revealed! Of course, if you read about the secret on this blog, you will probably become the target of adorable ninja assassins who will kill anyone, anything, & any person to keep the secret safe. Wait. Did I say "adorable"? I meant "deadly." Sorry, my delete key is petulant.

First, there is nine days of mourning & funeral masses following the end of the last theme. It is interred generally on the fourth or fifth day. No sooner than 15 days after the previous theme & no later than 20 days after its end, all of the shareholders under the age of eighty convene. Currently the Self Help Radio has two shareholders, only one imaginary.

The shareholders will generally hold two ballots a day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, & the ballots are burned. This is important, as it signals what the next theme might be: the burning of the secret ballots creates black smoke when no decision is reached, & the addition of magic chemicals (pop rocks) creates white smoke when one of the themes garners two-thirds of the votes, & is chosen. Modern shareholder meetings generally last no more than a few days, although the process could take longer if & when alcohol is involved.

Now, many people will have noticed that this process resembles in a lot of ways the manner by which a pope is chosen, especially the drinking. If this is what you have read, then the blog has already been censored & the process by which themes are chosen must remain secret. My apologies, but at least cute, fluffy ninjas will not be coming to kill you. Wait. Did I say "cute, fluffy"? I meant "alcoholic father." Sorry, my psychiatrist is messing with my prescription.

Also, can I make it clear this week's show is not about the popular Mormon Vampire Series "Twilight"? It just happens that the show was scheduled before the rise of that popular Mormon Vampire & Gay Werewolf phenomenon. It most certainly was not a way to get teenagers to listen to the Self Help Radio! We're above all that.

Until we're told we're not. But until then. Yes.

Preface To Twilight: A New Day & Time For Self Help Radio?!?!

It's true. Because the new schedule for WMUL begins this week, Self Help Radio has moved. The show will be on Mondays at midnight during the spring, live on the air on the fm dial at 88.1, & of course archived the next day at selfhelpradio.net like usual. & after Self Help Radio, the shows Dickenbock Electronics & Sugar Substitute will air alternating weeks, at 1:30 am.

By the way, Mondays at midnight means Tuesday morning, not Sunday night. Technically I guess the show is happening at midnight on Tuesday, but since I won't have gone to sleep, it's like it'll be Monday night. So, Monday at midnight.

Is this better than being on in the morning? Who knows? We'll see. Exciting things are happening at WMUL - some time this semester, the entire station will be entering the late 20th century & streaming live online. That's pretty cool. But now I have to go work on the show - it's happening two days early!

If Breakfast Is The Most Important Meal Of The Day...

Then Self Help Radio's show about breakfast is the most important show to listen to today. & every day!

Seriously, I just thought that up. Why aren't I being paid by the big boys?

Also seriously, the show is seriously good. It's at selfhelpradio.net. You'll need to make the coffee yourself.

I might come over if it's a vegan breakfast...

It's A Little Late To Be Thinking About Breakfast

But boy, I am. I should probably get some sleep & actually have breakfast before I do my show about breakfast tomorrow at 1pm on 88.1 fm WMUL in Huntington, although I will archive it later of course on the Self Help Radio website so you can listen to it at a more breakfasty time if you miss it &/or don't live in Huntington. I warn you, though. My biscuits suck.

Here's something I'm doing but for some reason not telling anyone: I have a Tumbler blog. It's of course at selfhelpradio.tumblr.com but it's mainly silly pictures & videos. Actually, that's all it will be. Maybe that's why I'm not telling anyone?

Okay, I'm signing off. Listen if when you can can. It will make you feel as though you're covered in syrup.

Whither Breakfast?

This is simple. Camille asked me if I had ever done a breakfast show, & I said no, no, I hadn't. Then I thought, well I should. So I will. & I'll dedicate it to Camille.

Who's Camille? What? You don't know Camille? She was even on the radio with me once. Or was it twice? She did a podcast with me too! You really should know Camille. She was in Austin but some Prince Romeo married her & took her to Memphis. Anyway, you should really go meet Camille. She's awesome.

& breakfast is on her!

Preface To Breakfast: Vegan Pancakes For Everyone!

The meanest cat in the neighborhood has only three legs, but that doesn't explain why she's so mean. Some say she was just born that way, but the local feline psychologists, who've been close enough to her to hear her grumbling purr, suggest that she wasn't loved much as a kitten, no, not even by her mother.

The leg, incidentally, was lost in a well-publicized spat with an immigrant cat who stupidly thought she could set up a catnip house in the this neck of the woods. The meanest cat in the neighborhood waged bloody war with that interloper & the trained dogs (for all catnip dealers inevitably use thugs like boxers or pit bulls to do their dirty work) brought in as muscle. The meanest cat in the neighborhood lost the leg choking a particularly nasty rottweiler, but even trailing blood she forced the drug dealers out. That, of course, is the subject of the Caldecott Medal-winning children's book "Cat On The Wire."

In any event, the meanest cat in the neighborhood finished her patrols this morning & noticed something odd. There was a sign tacked to the side of telephone pole at the bottom of the hill which read: Vegan Pancakes For Everyone!

(Of course the cat could read! All cats know how to read. Generally speaking, though, they hate English text. They really, really miss hieroglyphics.)

The cat did a double take, or chewed a little on the fur between her naughty bits & her inner thigh. Then she read again, because cats have notoriously bad memories: Vegan Pancakes For Everyone!

She called her friend Sherri, who was a waitress at a vegan cafe in Columbus, but Sherri was probably sleeping it off, since it's Sunday &, as Sherri often points out, "Vodka is vegan!" So she didn't answer the phone.

(Of course cats have cell phones! They just don't call you.)

The meanest cat in the neighborhood just wasn't certain whether the sign was supposed to be a call to action or a wish list or even an indicator of a delicious treat at some event, restaurant or cafe - it didn't say anything else. This made the meanest cat in the neighborhood so angry she hissed at some squirrels who weren't doing anything but will admit that, as they ran away, they peed a little. The meanest cat in the neighborhood shook her head & turned around to go home. The sky told her it was about ten in the morning or thereabouts, so she had to get started or breakfast time would be over soon.

Because even though she was the meanest cat in the neighborhood, she felt it important that everyone trusted signs. Otherwise who would stop at a stop sign? Or leave a house with a no soliciting sign alone? Or detour when a detour was required?

She jumped into someone's window, found the kitchen, gathered the materials, & began to prepare vegan pancakes.

For everyone.

My Birthday Show

Self Help Radio's show about my favorite music from 1974 is at selfhelpradio.net for you to listen to. Please do!

Now, it's my birthday so I'm going to go do something goofy, like stick my face in a cake or ride a bike into a wall.

The Last Day I Am A Forty-One Year Old

Interestingly, if I were to die before the end of this day, I'd be forty-one forever. That could happen, you know. How? Well. The various space agencies & amateur astronomers out there could have totally missed a meteor or a rogue asteroid coming straight for Huntington - or maybe they noticed it, but forgot that there were people in West Virginia - & I could be almost literally wiped off the face of the earth. Or I could be killed in a car accident or by a mugger/burglar/hoodlum/homicidal maniac/pet I didn't feed at the right time. Or years of not taking good care of myself - or worse yet, something random having to do with genetics - could cause a stroke or heart attack or blood clot or seizure or total systems shut-down - & I'll have been too busy working on my radio show to have noticed it. Boom! I no longer exist.

That's the problem. It wouldn't be so bad being forty-one forever. I just wish I could exist while I was forty-one forever.

Forty-one was an adventurous year! It began with me in a kind of limbo in Austin (not doing the limbo), & a year later Self Help Radio has a new home on WMUL & I have a new home twelve hundred miles from where I started. We adopted a lovely cat named Bronte who is awesome & even more spectacularly we transported five other pets successfully across four state lines without causing any of them permanent psychosis. I got to actually see the season commonly called "fall" & I got to live in a place where it snows & - you might not believe this - it stays on the ground for longer than a few hours! Astonishing.

Yes, tomorrow's my birthday & my birthday show - 1pm here in Huntington on 88.1 fm & archived later on selfhelpradio.net like always. Listen, or you have to buy me a present.

Whither 1974?

Doing a birthday show is one the longest-running things I've done, although, since my first January Self Help Radio would have been in 2003, I should be at 1975 by now. (I started playing my favorite songs from the year of my birth, which was 1968, on that show. So, the progression would be: 2003-1968, 2004-1969, 2005-1970, 2006-1971, 2007-1972, 2008-1973, 2009-1974, 2010-1975.) What happened?

Magda (who was then my girlfriend but is now my warden) had a friend in town, & I thought it'd be fun for her to do a radio show. I do that. When the next week happened, it wasn't my birthday any longer, so it felt weird, like doing a Christmas show in January or a Halloween show in November.

We continue, therefore, as if we never skipped a year, with 1974 this year. Ye gods but I write the same thing about this each year! Here are excerpts from previous blog entries about this particular annual show:

Whither 1971? "I wanted to do something to commemorate my birthday, especially since my friends, family, pets & insurance agents hardly ever remember it. Or if they remember it, they never commerorate it. If anything, they disrespect it. They set a box of dog poo on its doorstep & ignite it. Then they run away."

Whither 1972? "Also, it's important to note that the majority of the time I spent in 1972, I was four years old, & didn't really have a very good record collection at that point (I had most of the Beatles records, but didn't everyone by the age of four?) so these are records I hold in high esteem NOW, not that I held in high esteem then. Not necessarily."

Whither 1973? "Whatever else was going on the world in 1973, the five-year-old me paid absolutely no attention to."

Here's a future entry:

Whither 2010? "Before you put me in the computer to share my consciousness with the World Mind, let me remind you drones that at one time, before the Climate Apocalypse, we actually had computers separate from our bodies, & we 'wrote' in things called 'blogs.' Ha ha ha! It's almost as weird as this thing called 'radio' we had. Yes, a seventy-year-old man is amusing, especially when all that's left of me is a brain & the box of cheese that used to be my heart. Over & out sproglings!"

I found that in a black hole that had lodged between my two top front teeth that I had to dislodge with a floss made of string theory.

On my show, though, I'll be telling you how I went to Germany when I was six. You can't miss that.

Preface To 1974: Did You Know They Have Facebook In Finland?

That's weird. I thought it was cold there all the time & people worked in factories. At least that's what I got from the movie Match Factory Girl, which really is one of my all-time favorite movies, which is actually called "Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö." Which I am assuming is not Finnish for "Facebook."

Probably "Facebook" is Finnish for "Facebook." Finns actually speak English quite well. Here's an actual internet answer to the question I was thinking of asking, which was "How many Finnish folk speak English?":

"Swedish is actually the second official language of Finland, but I found most Finns I met actually spoke better English than Swedish."

What does that say about Swedish? In Finland, I mean.

I am feeling bad I forgot to write in the blog on Saturday. Technically, it's Saturday night, as I've been awake all day, but I'll count this as Sunday because the days have officially changed. Luckily no one reads this, or else I might be taken to task. Whatever that means.

I did a google for "Self Help Radio" & found a Finnish Facebook page. It's very weird. Or have I been drinking in front of the fire again? Who knows? Who cares? Good night Helsinki! I'll remember you in my memoirs!

A Million Miles Of Radio Show Begins With A Single Download...

Today's Self Help Radio, which features lots of songs talking about "a million miles" & therefore can be considered millions of miles long (although it's only ninety minutes) (which is kinda funny because people are always thinking that "light years" measure time, not distance, & who can forget the hilarious blooper in Star Wars where Han Solo can make "the Kessel Run" in "under 12 parsecs" ha ha I can't but if you want to read Star Wars nerds defending their sensei George Lucas from what was obviously a mistaken understanding of what a "parsec" is you can do that here but anyway I must be the first person in the history of whatever-the-fuck to confuse a "mile" as a unit of time oh what a dumb douche-nozzle I am!) anyway that aside was too long so I'm going to have to start again.

Today's Self Help Radio, which features lots of songs talking about "a million miles" & therefore can be considered millions of miles long (although it's only ninety minutes) is now available to be listened to as is its tendency once it's recorded at selfhelpradio.net. Please do so. I now have to go listen to every record released in 1974 to remind myself which were my favorites. See you Saturday!

One To The Zero To The Zero Zero Zero Zero Zero Miles

Eep, did I put too many zeroes in the title? A million is a one with six zeroes. Self Help Radio is a show with one zero. Me.

I've got probably a million songs stuck somewhere in my head which would help if I had to walk a million miles because it would take me a long time to walk a million miles & let's face it I'd probably want to sing some of the songs more than once.

I only have ninety minutes so don't expect a million songs but do expect to hear songs that cover millions of miles. You know where & when it happens. You don't? It's at 1pm at 88.1 fm on your radio dial (that's WMUL here in Huntington) archived later at selfhelpradio.net like I always do.

Be there or you better be a million miles away, bub.

Whither A Million Miles?

A million is a lot of miles. It's also a lot of dollars, & tears, & dreams. But this week the concern is the million miles. Man! That's a lot of miles!

A million miles is more than a million kilometers, although it's important to point out that in a million miles there are more than a million kilometers. Whoa! I know! Didn't that make your head hurt? Ouch. I feel like watching television for three hours to calm my brain down. It's that flippin' trippy!

A million miles is so much that, unless you're an astronomer or are piloting a spacecraft, it's not a useful measure. So you probably use it as a metaphor, or a large number that expresses an impossible goal. It's nice & round. You could just as easily say "a million kilometers" (or, if you're in America, you could say "a million meters" or even "a million millimeters," because Americans have no idea what the Metric System means) but it doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely. Or how about "nine hundred ninety-seven million, three hundred ten thousand and seventeen miles"? Just as impossible to imagine, but good lord, it took me seven minutes to type that! Imagine how long it would take to say!

As usual, the police showed up at my door & made me listen to all their records & they said, "Do you have any more Honey Nut Cheerios?" I had to tell them my wife had eaten them all, but they still beat me senseless with their bras & panties. & then it was Bible reading. Oy gevalt! In any event, there's a court order about the show this week. You know how it goes.

Preface To A Million Miles: Cabin Fever

I know, I'm always quoting the Wikipedia around here (& by the way, some time between now & several months ago my browser, which spell-checks everything as I write it {so there's really no excuse when I misspell something}, decided that "Wikipedia" was not something misspelled) but here's what they say about cabin fever:

"Cabin fever is an idiomatic term for a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated &/or shut in, in a small space, with nothing to do, for an extended period (as in a simple country vacation cottage during a long rain or snow)."

Or in Huntington, West Virginia, when it snows for an entire week? Please note this isn't a real fever, like Rheumatic Fever or Dance Fever.

"Symptoms include restlessness, irritability, forgetfulness, laughter, & excessive sleeping, distrust of anyone they are with, & an urge to go outside even in the (less miserable) rain, snow or dark."

I haven't slept more than usual, but I can tell you, my dogs are plotting something. It's just in the way they TALK BEHIND MY BACK.

"Cabin fever can also be known as a term for a lack of sexual intercourse."

Ha ha ha. What?

"The phrase is also used humorously to indicate simple boredom from being home alone."

Nyah.

"An 1820 reference is to an actual fever, common in Ireland, resulting from eating watery potatoes during wet years."

Now that's more like it! Eating watery potatoes during wet years! You can't make that shit up. Or you can, & then put it in the cabin fever section of Wikipedia.

I'm not implying I have cabin fever. It's just still very snow-covered outside & I don't think I've left the house in four days. But I have plenty to do - I'm working on Self Help Radio for you!