Poor, Burning Texas

As you may or may not have heard, my hometown (well, the town I lived in for over twenty years, & the town where I did most of my radio) of Austin is very close to a gigantic fire that's burning just thirty or so miles to the east of it. The city of Bastrop has basically been evacuated & much of the lovely Bastrop State Park has burned down.

Here's a terrifying video of some of the fire & how fast is spreads:



This site has maps of the fire & information about it. Two people have died. 38,000 acres have burned. 550 "structures" (I'm assuming that is some kind of weird euphemism for "homes) have been destroyed.

Friends in Austin - all of whom are safe, thankfully - report that the air smells like smoke, & that in some places there have been ashes coming from the sky. & of course there's this famous picture of the Austin skyline & the smoke to the east.

It's all terrifying, & all the more strange since it's been cold & rainy in Lexington the past week. I am very grateful for social media, which has allowed me to keep tabs on people without being a worry-wart & a buttinsky. Mostly I'm glad people I know are safe, as I am sad for the folks who had to be evacuated & who lost their homes. I take no pleasure in noting that most of them probably supported Rick Perry for governor, even as he cut funding for fire departments by 75%.

It's a Texas thing. You wouldn't understand.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Eleven

Are you tired of me being so negative about the unfunny A Joke A Day service? Do you wish that I'd just unsubscribe & go back to writing nonsense only vaguely related to my radio show? Do you understand that I am just talking to myself?

If you answered "meh" to any of the above questions, you're more eloquent than I thought.

This week actually had a joke that was told to me a long time ago by one of my nieces or nephews. Probably a nephew. Told poorly, but charmingly nonetheless. I give you, then, a pretty good children's joke as told by someone who submitted it to the A Joke A Day joke subscription service:

A panda bear walks into a bar & orders a sandwich. The waiter brings him the sandwich. The panda bear eats it, pulls out a pistol, kills the waiter, & gets up & starts to walk out. The bartender yells for him to stop. The panda bear asks, "What do you want?" The bartender replies, "First you come in here, order food, kill my waiter, then try to go without paying for your food." The panda bear turns around & says, "Hey! I'm a Panda. Look it up!" The bartender goes into the back room & looks up panda bear in the encyclopedia, which read: "Panda: a bear-like marsupial originating in Asian regions. Known largely for its stark black & white coloring. Eats shoots & leaves."

I corrected the misspellings in the joke. I remember there was a chick at KVRX whose email address was eats.shoots.and.leaves@whatever.com. She was not, to my best recollection, a panda.

Why does a bar have a set of encyclopedias?

A Day Of Labor Day Show

It's a Monday, it's a holiday, who am I to be contrary, why not do a Labor Day show about working? If I'm still on Mondays next year maybe not, but for right now, it seemed a good idea. & it's also appropriate that I, who don't work, should have to "work" on Labor Day.

So here are some songs for the beleaguered workers of the United States, & the world too, & although I mention it in the show, I want to share with you my favorite quote about work, from Andre Breton: "There is no use in being alive if one must work. The event from which each of us is entitled to expect the revelation of his own life's meaning - that event which I may not yet have found, but on whose path I seek myself - is not earned by work."

The show works in two parts, which are labelled helpfully part one & part two. What's in each part is listed below.

(part one)

"Welcome To The Working Week" The Methadones _21st Century Power Pop Riot_
"Working Man's Song" The Falcons _United Artists Doo-Wop Vol. 4_
"Work, Work, Work" Lee Dorsey _Ride Your Pony/Get Out Of My Life, Woman_
"I'm A Hard Workin' Man" Abner Jay _Swaunee Water & Cocaine Blues_

"The Work Song" Tommy Hunt _Dancing 'Til Dawn_
"Sixteen Tons" Tennessee Ernie Ford _Workers & The Workplace_
"Bracero" Phil Ochs _There But For Fortune_
"There Is Power In A Union" Utah Phillips & The Entertainment Workers IU 630, IWW _Don't Mourn, Organize! Songs Of Labor Songwriter Joe Hill_
"There Is Power In A Union" Billy Bragg _Talking With The Taxman About Poetry_

"I'll Do Anything But Work" Ray Charles _The Swingtime Records Story_
"You Won't Get Me Workin'" Symon Grace & Tuesday Blues _Quagmire Volume 3: Being A Compendium Of Olde-Time Killer Punk Selections From The 1960s_
"Work Is A Four-Letter Word" The Smiths _Girlfriend In A Coma_
"Working Man Is Proud Of A Job He Hates" Onion Radio News _Onion Radio News_
"Work Today" Lightning Love _November Birthday_

(part two)

"Never Work" Mekons _Retreat From Memphis_

"Go to Work You Jerk" Benny Bell _Go to Work You Jerk_
"Whistle While You Work" Louis Armstrong _Disney Songs The Satchmo Way_
"A Hard Day's Night" Peter Sellers _A Celebration Of Sellers_
"Housework" Carol Channing _Free To Be You & Me_
"Working In A Coal Mine" Devo _Pioneers That Were Scalped: The Anthology_
"The Worker" Fischer-Z _Word Salad_
"Work" Lou Reed & John Cale _Songs For Drella_

"You Gotta Go To Work" Rex Griffin _American Yodeling 1911-1946_
"Workin' Man Blues" Merle Haggard _Down Every Road: 1962 - 1994_
"Work" Spizz Energi _Spizz Not Dead: 1978-88 Decade Of Spizz History_
"Shift-Work" The Fall _Shift-Work_

Whither A Day Of Labor?

Since my show is now on Mondays - & since I hope it'll be on Mondays for a while - I have to get used to the preponderance of holidays that fall on Mondays. Memorial Day, President's Day, MLK Day - & of course Labor Day. So maybe it'll be a "regular feature" of the show that, on Labor Day, I do a work-related show.

This year, it's about work. That's all. You can hear the show on a day you may not have to work at 7:30 am tomorrow morning, on the FM dial at 88.1 in Lexington & the surrounding villas, & online at the WRFL web site everywhere & then some.

I'll archive it later at self help radio dot net because of course you'll sleep in. I don't get to, but you do.

Preface To A Day Of Labor: You Have To Work On Labor Day?

Hey, I'm not the only one. & really, Self Help Radio isn't really work. Have a look at this link: Ten People Who Have To Work On Labor Day.

No, it's not names like Betty, Benny & Bob. It's types of professions, like police, correctional officers, nurses, wastewater treatment plant operators, & air traffic controllers. You know who's not on that list? Convenience store workers. Fast food workers. Community radio station volunteers.

In fact, this article points out something you might not have known about those folks (well, not the radio volunteers - we do it for free):

For millions of workers, Labor Day is another day on the job... The law actually does not require employers to pay any wage premium when they force their employees to work on Labor Day, or any other national holiday. This means that many of the people grilling burgers at fast food restaurants, staffing the checkout counter at convenience stores, or cleaning the bathrooms in hotels, get the same hourly pay when they are forced to work on Labor Day, as they do any other day of the year.

They get no compensation whatsoever for being separated from their friends and family on a national holiday. According to data from the Labor Department, 25.5 million workers do not get any paid holiday time, meaning that they either get the holidays off without pay, or they are forced to work at their regular wage. Similarly, 22.2 million workers have no paid vacation at their job.

Some places do offer time & a half as an incentive for folks to work on Labor Day. WRFL, for example, gives me my regular hourly wage, which is nothing, plus two times that, & a pat on the back. But I have worked at shitty jobs - like in a video store & a gas station - & they paid me time & a half on holidays.

Not that they were nice guys - they simply knew no one would work if they didn't. But in those situations, I was just a kid who didn't really need the job. What if I did?

You should ask, if you visit a convenience store or a fast food jernt on Labor Day, if the folks are getting time & a half. Especially if you get the day off.

The Sickliest

There might be some irony in the fact that I did a Self Help Radio about sickness & then, a week later, caught a cold (*). While that is certainly some powerful cause & effect, it might also be that thousands of students from all over converged on Lexington & some of them brought viruses & germs with them from god-knows-where, & a small but significant portion of them came to the radio station & talked on the same microphone that I used on that Monday morning a week ago. In any event, I am fortunate I could take the time this week to goof out on Sudafed & make my mouth sticky with cough drops. I am feeling a little better today.

I can't remember the last time I had a cold, but I also don't remember sickness well. I remember getting a cold in Huntington over a year ago, because I just went to bed at that time until it went away. It also came right after a radio show, but it was at the end of the semester, not the beginning. It was a harder cold than this one, but I knew the proper treatment: take medication to make me sleep & wait until it went away. Anyway, I thought I'd use this blog as a place to mark when I get sick so I could see if I am declining in my old age.

So. I caught a cold August 30, 2011. I did not die.

I did manage to make dinner for my lovely wife last night - it was chili, it was awesome - but because of my sinuses laying on my face like an iron skillet, I couldn't taste anything. I did appreciate the texture & my tongue reported it was spicy. But that's all.

How did I know it was awesome? My wife told me so.

What, more Sudafed? If you insist. Zzzzzzzzzzz.

(*) I am thinking of doing a Self Help Radio about winning the lottery to test my radio show's power.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Ten

The A Joke A Day folks continued their incredible losing streak this week with more sexist jokes about wives loathing their husbands, with motorists trying to fool cops, with boring proto-Dilbert office-work-sucks style jokes, with "hilarious" children (they say the fuckiest things!), & with jokes written by comedians new to the planet. But this one struck me as peculiar, & although it is part of the A Joke A Day system, it feels more like it's supposed to be true, doesn't it?

Insurance Company

A Charlotte, North Carolina man, having purchased a case of rare, very expensive cigars, insured them against .... get this .... fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile of fabulous cigars, and having yet to make a single premium payment on the policy, the man filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the man stated that he had lost the cigars in "a series of small fires." The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in a normal fashion. The man sued ... and won!! In delivering his ruling, the judge stated that since the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable, and also guaranteed that it would insure the cigars against fire, without defining what it considered to be "unacceptable fire," it was obligated to compensate the insured for his loss. Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the judge's ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he lost in "the fires." After the man cashed his check, however, the insurance company had him arrested... on 24 counts of arson! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used as evidence against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning the rare cigars and sentenced to 24 consecutive one year terms.

Needless to say, there's nothing true about this, & it appears to have actually started out as a joke, but made its way, through retelling online, into "urban legend" status. As the page at snopes.com explains:

As to whether there could be any truth to the legend's premise, insurance policies are generally written so that deliberate actions on the part of the policyholders cannot trigger payouts. Furthermore, destroying your own property isn't arson, as long as the act isn't intended to defraud anyone. If a court had already ruled that the insurance company was required to pay, then obviously no fraud was committed, and thus the burning could not be considered arson.

Not so funny now, eh, Mr. A Joke A Day?

As a bonus, I give you this week's Non-Joke. Oh, it looks like a joke. It even has a certain rhythm like a joke. But is it a joke? No! It's A Joke A Day!

A new miracle doctor was in town. He could cure anything and anybody, and everyone was amazed. Everyone except for Mr. Smith, the town’s grouch So Mr. Smith went to this 'miracle doctor' to prove that he wasn't anybody special. So he goes and tells the doctor, "Hey, doc, I have lost my sense of taste. I can't taste nothing', so what are you going to do?"
The doctor scratches his head and mumbles to himself a little, then tells Mr. Smith, "What you need is jar number 43."
Jar number 43? Mr. Smith wonders. So the doctor brings the jar and tells Mr. Smith to taste it. He tastes it and immediately spits it out, "This is gross!" he yells.
"I just restored your sense of taste Mr. Smith," says the doctor.
So Mr. Smith goes home very mad. One month later, Mr. Smith goes back to the doctor along with a new problem, "Doc," he starts, "I can't remember!"
Thinking he got the doctor, the doctor scratches his head and mumbles to himself a little and tells Mr. Smith, "What you need is jar number 43..."
Before the doctor finished his sentence, Mr. Smith fled the office.

More Indiepop! For You!

As you know, a long time ago, thinking I might live forever, I came up with the notion, thanks to the folks who maintain the band pages at TweeNet, that I could make a few nice radio shows playing indiepop bands from a to z. I decided to include bands they didn't, & also, just to make it interesting, some bands who I thought influenced indiepop in some way. Now, thirty-three episodes later, I am still on the letter G, & will die (I know it) before I get to the letter S.

Ah well. I think it's a lot of fun to research & try to be as complete as possible, & I hope it's fun to listen to. To get as much done as possible, I hijacked the freeform show that precedes Self Help Radio (which I also do), called Sugar Substitute, so I could play three hours of indiepop today, from Gentle Tuesday to the Gol Gappas. It's a lot of fun music.

The show is therefore in FOUR parts instead of two, since it's two shows divided in two. The entire show is at Self Help Radio dot net, of course, but the individual links are as follows:

Indiepop A To Z # 32, Part I
Indiepop A To Z # 32, Part II
Indiepop A To Z # 33, Part I
Indiepop A To Z # 33, Part II

What's in each section is below. Remember, the previous editions of Indiepop A To Z can be found on the Self Help Radio Archive page. In case you want to check my alphabetization skills.

Indiepop A To Z # 32 Part I

"I've Never Been So Poorly Insulted In My Life" Gentle Tuesday _I've Never Been So Poorly Insulted In All My Life 7"_
"Weathershow" The Gentle Waves _The Green Fields Of Foreverland_
"Fluid" The Gerbils _Are You Sleepy?_
"Color Vibration" The German Measles _A German Joke Is No Laughing Matter_

"Geek The Girl" Lisa Germano _Geek The Girl_
"I Like It" Gerry & The Pacemakers _The British Invasion: A History Of British Rock_
"Isolated" Ghost Society _The Back Of His Hands, Then The Palms_
"Painting By Numbers" The Gifted Children _Painting By Numbers 7"_
"Favourite Song" Gigantaur _LemonLime Volume 1_

"Alone At The Pier (with Rose Melberg)" Gigi _Maintenant_
"Renaissance Girl" Gilroy _Renaissance Girl_

Indiepop A To Z # 32 Part II

"Goldfish" Ginger Bottles _The Sound Of Leamington Spa Vol. 6_
"Frances & The Dancing Fairies" Girl Alliance _Summer In Berlin_
"The Soundtrack Of Your Life" A Girl Called Eddy _Tears All Over Town_

"Warm Around You" Girl Of My Best Friend _Warm Around You 7"_
"Circus" Girl Of The World _Wonderboy_
"Please Wait While We Try To Connect You" Girlboy Girl _Fresco_
"Smoke Ring Cool" Girlfrendo _So You Are Here Again, Shadow?_
"Lust For Life" Girls _Album_
"Never Enough" The Girls At Dawn _Never Enough_

"Getting Nowhere Fast" Girls At Our Best! _Pleasure_
"When You Cry" Girls Names _Dead To Me_

Indiepop A To Z # 33 Part I

"Ride My Star" The Girl With The Replaceable Head _Ride My Star EP_
"This Is Love" The Gist _This Is Love_
"It's Raining All Of The Time" The Git Shields _A Chance To Shine_

"Today... Please" Glaring Surge _Just For A Day_
"Paper Airplanes" The Glasses _Birdsongs, Beesongs: Eardrums Spring Compilation_
"No Reason" The Glee Club _Mine_
"Stars Above" Glo-Worm _Why Popstars Can't Dance_
"New York Boy" Gloss _New York Boy_

"Punish Me With Kisses" The Glove _Blue Sunshine_
"Streets Of Your Town" The Go-Betweens _16 Lovers Lane_
"Go Between's Gig" Go Go Charlton _Beaucoup Schlager_

Indiepop A To Z # 33 Part II

"Vacation" Go-Go's _Vacation_

"Flight Of Angels" Go Hole _Flight Of Angels_
"Listening To Marmalade" Go-Kart Mozart _Tearing Up The Album Charts_
"I'm Still Crying" Go Sailor _Go Sailor_
"Real Life" Go! Service _It Makes Me Realise EP_
"Your Back Yard" Go Team Throw: The Yoyo Studio Compilation_

"Funny Little Frog" God Help The Girl _God Help The Girl_
"We'll Keep Our Chains" Vic Godard _Long Term Side-Effect_
"Your Future" Godzuki _Your Future_
"Copycat" Going Stagg _Ocean Park Paradox! U.S. Pop Life Vol. 6: California_
"St. Lucy" Gol Gappas _Bellissimo! él Records The Singles_

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 32?

Actually, it'll be Indiepop A To Z #s 32 & 33. I'm hijacking Sugar Substitute for just such an occasion.

Um, I might as well keep going, right? All those indiepop bands who've been waiting for me to get to them - their name starts with J, or N, or V. How can I stop now?

I'm still in the Gs. I'll still be in the Gs at the end of three hours. I may be in the "golds." But who knows? Not me.

You should listen. It's from 6 to 9am tomorrow morning (that's Monday) on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington. You can listen online at wrfl.fm in anywhere else. You can listen to previous episodes (Indiepop A To Gentle D) in the Self Help Radio Archive.

I promise not to talk about Happy Days anymore.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 32: Nothing At All About Indiepop

I will be continuing the Indiepop A To Z series this Monday morning - it'll be a special three-hour episode, encompassing both Self Help Radio & Sugar Substitute - but tonight from midnight to three am on WRFL Lexington (that's 88.1 on your fm dial in the city of Lexington & the surrounding horse farms) I'll be playing electronica like I used to do when I did Dickenbock Electronics. I miss that show. Oh well.

Tune in! You can listen everywhere & nowhere at all on the WRFL web site. You can listen to any show on WRFL there. It's pretty awesome.

I must go nap now. It'll be a long night.

I'm Going To Frankfort!

That's right! Tomorrow I will spend what I hope are not very many hours in lovely Frankfort, Kentucky, capital of the Commonwealth. I will be putting up posters in what I hope are friendly shop windows for WRFL's upcoming music festival called Boomslang. I hope I don't get shot!

If your destination is Frankfort, then you should visit the Visit Frankfort web site! For example, did you know that "West Frankfort has more of the family - sit down style restaurants where the whole family can find somet and much more to satisfy any craving."

(Is this strange & wonderful sounding "somet" a Kentucky delicacy? I can't wait to find out!)

What are some of these "sit down style restaurants" on the west side of Frankfort? They have exotic names like "Applebee's" & "Arby's" & "Burger King" & "Chili's" & "Sonic." I'm pretty excited about that!

Oh, the things I do for the radio station I love. Do you want me to send you a picture of me by the capitol rotunda?

(By the way, I've already been to Frankfurt, Germany, where my mother was born. I'm sure Frankfort is just as exciting.)

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Nine

It was the week of the weak A Joke A Day joke. I mean, for a mostly worthless daily dose of unfunny, you seriously can't beat the folks at A Joke A Day. But this week it was like they asked a group of groggy seven-year-olds to come up with the jokes. For example:

A duck walked into a bakery one day & asked for a pork chop.
The baker said, "We aren't a butcher; we don't sell meat here."
So the duck left.
The following day the duck went back & asked again.
This time the Baker said, "No, if you come here again I will nail your feet to the floor."
The following day the duck returned & asked, "Have you any nails?"
The baker replied, "No." & the duck said, "Well, I'll have two pork chops then."

If I honestly thought someone honestly thought it was funny, I might appreciate it. But it's really the sort of joke my friends & I would try to invent when we were in elementary school.

I mean, it's the sort of joke that you have to laugh after you've told it to cue everyone in on the fact that you've just told a joke.

The A Joke A Day people should find a way to incorporate a laugh track.

Bonus unfunny below!

A man goes to an optician asking for help about his shortsightedness.
The optician invites the man to go outside the shop, points to the sun & asks the man what that is. The man somewhat stunned replies obviously: that’s the sun! Thereafter the optician asks: but how far do you want to see?

Thereafter?

Sick Help Radio

Self Help Radio apologizes to anyone who tuned in to today's show, which was about sickness, & got sick. You must have been a first-time listener. Those who have listened to the show before are well aware that it can cause headaches, nausea, vomiting, the sweats, itchiness, swelling, cracking, vague unease, stinkiness, changes in eye color, & opprobrium. & that's true with most any Self Help Radio show, not just today's episode about sickness.

The show today is not available in the pharmacy section of your local supermarket (nor your grocer's freezer), but instead is stocked on the shelves of self help radio dot net. It comes as a two-pack: the first half of the show is in this container & the second half is in this container. The contents of each half are listed below.

I don't imagine it would be safe to operate heavy machinery while listening to Self Help Radio but upon further consideration I don't think it would be unsafe, either. The heavy machinery may drown out the show!

(part one)

"Sick" Beatnik Filmstars _Laid Back & English_
"Sick" Boss Hogg _Boss Hogg_

"Dust Pneumonia Blues" Woody Guthrie _Some Folk_
"T.B. Blues" Jimmie Rodgers _The Singing Brakeman_
"High Fever Blues" Bukka White _The Complete Bukka White_
"Sickbed Blues" Skip James _Blues From The Delta_
"Cold Turkey" John Lennon _The Collection_

"Chills & Fever" Ronnie Love _Whip! Wobble & Grind! 1962-1964_
"Rocking Pneumonia & The Boogie Woogie Flu" Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns _Having A Good Time With Huey "Piano" Smith & His Clowns_
"I'm Sick Y'all" Otis Redding _The Otis Redding Story_

(part two)

"The Flu & Nyquil" Lewis Black _The White Album_
"Sick, Sober & Sorry" Johnny Bond _Johnny Bond's Best_

"Malaria" Shriekback _Oil & Gold_
"Stomach Flu" Todd Barry _Falling Off The Bone_
"Cancer Of Everything" Lisa Germano _Geek The Girl_
"In The Sanitorium" Momus _Tender Pervert_
"Still Ill" Smiths _Hatful Of Hollow_

"Touch Me I'm Sick" Mudhoney _March To Fuzz_
"So Sick" Unrest _Perfect Teeth_
"Robitusson" Chris Rock _Bigger & Blacker_
"The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn" The Pogues _Rum Sodomy & The Lash_
"I'm A Living Sickness" Calico Wall _Trash Box: Wild Psychotic Garage Punk!!!_

Whither Sickness?

I am not a sickly person, though I am not entirely a healthy person. My family seems about as medicated (if not more) as the average American, which is a damning statement. I take vitamins & iron to make sure my vegan lifestyle doesn't do me harm, & I take medication for what I am told is a genetic predisposition toward high blood pressure. I can't recall the last time I was really sick.

The wife tells me the last time I had a really bad cold was over a year ago, in the winter, in West Virginia. I seem to remember getting colds all the time in the summers in Texas, where I would constantly travel from 68 degrees indoors to 100+ temperatures outdoors, & back, all day long. I also remember having fewer colds when I was a smoker. But my memory is hazy, getting hazier over time. My brain rewrites constantly.

A show about sickness ought not be a celebration of sickness. We are a very sick world. This week's "Louie" had a riff about how American children eat candy-flavored medicine. I wish I had the ability Louis CK had to put things into perspective in that way. I guess I try. I know I don't do so well.

I'm almost afraid to invite you to the show, but, well, here we go: Self Help Radio's show about sickness will air tomorrow morning (Monday the 22nd) from 7:30 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm everywhere there's a world wide web. Later I will hang the finished product out to dry at self help radio dot net.

I did think it'd be funny if I got sick before the show & had to reschedule. But. That didn't happen.

Preface To Sickness: Are You Okay?

I have been looking over this slideshow of US Health Statistics 2010. The actual report is right here. It's a kind of lurid fun read. Americans seem to get less healthy the more their country falls apart around them. I highly recommend a glance at the "at a glance" pdf. It includes wonderful poetic sentences like "The proportion of American adults 20 years of age & over who were obese rose in the 1980s & 1990s. In 2007–2008, about one-third of adults were obese & about two-thirds were overweight or obese." It also has awesome graphs that will make you hungry to look at like these:



I just ate dinner & I feel like I'm starving. What a good American I am!

Don't Make Fun Of Online Gaming, Not In My Presence, Mister Ma'am

Once upon a time
There was a lonely haiku
Who died of neglect

There's a group of poets out there - they know who they are - who think they can call a poem by a defined term - like haiku, or sonnet, or villanelle - even if they're not following the rules. They think they're awful cool.

If they were really cool, they'd write (or one of them would write, proving that she or he was cooler than the rest of them) a book of poems of all the different kinds of poetry. There's probably more than what's on that list as well. Some really obscure shit. Yeah!

The reason that they don't, of course, is the same reason that they write a poem that looks like this:

Gentle evening rain in air
Washed the weary sun setting clean
Like a washed face over a basin
Getting ready to sleep

& call it a haiku - it's because they're lazy.

Lazy can be revolutionary, though. So perhaps they're cool after all.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Eight

The difference between a bad joke & a good joke is not something I - & I am not a comedian - or even, some would doubtless say, very funny - it's not something I feel qualified or equipped to discuss. I only focus on this A Joke A Day series because they're just so horribly unfunny that the most easily tickled must scratch their heads in befuddlement just trying to grasp these shabby attempts at humor.

But if, let's say, the difference between how good a joke is received is in the telling, the fine lackadaisical editors (let's assume they exist) must appreciate that the success or failure of their A Joke A Day jokes would benefit from their presentation. As I've mentioned before, there is no evidence - none whatsoever - that there is even the most rudimentary attempt at a basic rewrite of submitted jokes. Someone - possibly even an automated computer program, which looks for keywords like racial epithets & profanity - glosses over them, makes sure they look a little like a joke, safely sanitized, & then rubber-stamp them.

Or else how explain Saturday's A Joke A Day? I reprint it exactly as I received it:

Steve lived in Stated Island, NY and worked in Manhattan. He had to take the ferry home every night. One evening, he got sown to the ferry and found there was a wait for the next boat, so Steve decided to stop at a nearby tavern. Before long he was felling no pain. When he got back to the ferry slip, the ferryboat was just eight feet from the dock.

Steve. Afraid of missing this one and being late for dinner, took a running leap and landed right on the deck of the boat. “How did you like that jump, buddy?” said a proud Steve to a deck hand. “It was great,” said the sailor. “But why didn’t you wait? We were just pulling in!”

I'm not sure if the joke is funny or not. I couldn't get past the glaring spelling mistakes & the weird one-word sentence at the beginning of the second paragraph.

Don't the A Joke A Day people know there are recently-graduated English majors out there who would gladly take a shitty job for little pay with their company? That they could easily edit a joke like this?

Astounding.

Confusion Is Not Sexy

You know what's confusing? Doing a radio show about confusion & then returning home to put most everything you own into boxes that very same say & then, even later, watching strong men - men you've paid - put them in a giant truck & take them somewhere else.

Also, waking up the next day in a different place than where you previously woke up, & finding those selfsame boxes you packed before suddenly filled with tapioca pudding & grief. Then the yellowjackets attack!

That's pretty confusing. Self Help Radio this week confused itself, too. You can join in on the perplexity if you're so inclined. The show is available now at self help radio dot net. So as not to confuse you further, I've broken the show into two parts. Though still confusing, the parts do have certain songs played during their duration - I've listed those below. Click here: part one &/or part two. Part three is only available in outer space.

(part one)

"Confusion" Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry _Brownie McGhee & Sonny Terry Sing_
"Confused" Paul Gayten _Gettin' Funky: The Birth Of New Orleans R & B_
"Confused" Dean Martin _Memories Are Made Of This_

"My Confusion" The Elite _Fort Worth Teen Scene Vol. 2_
"Confusion" Randy & The Rest _Fuzz, Flaykes, & Shakes, Vol. 6: Come On In To My World_
"A Whole Lot Of Confusion" The Ethics _Trip In Tyme, Volume 2_
"Confusion All Day" The Petards _Electrick Loosers # 3 (The Rheingold Rampage 1964-1970)_
"Confusion" Thee Mighty Caesars _Surely They Were The Sons Of God_
"State Of Confusion" The Kinks _State Of Confusion_

"Confusion" Lee Dorsey _People Sure Act Funny_
"Ball Of Confusion" The Temptations _Emperors Of Soul_
"Confusion" Chocolate Milk _Action Speaks Louder Than Words_

(part two)

"World Of Confusion" Sylvan White _Africans Unite_

"Confusion" New Order _Substance_
"Get Confused" Fischerspooner _Odyssey_
"People, You Can Confuse" Adult. _Anxiety Always_
"Dazed & Confused" Sofia _Search & Destroy_

"Confusion Fog" Meat Puppets _Mirage_
"Confusion" Silver Apples _Contact_
"Confusion" Sparks _Big Beat_
"I'm So Confused" Jonathan Richman _I'm So Confused_

Moved into a new house today

Had a wonderful show this morning.

Will post it tomorrow.

Maybe it will prove me wrong.

Apologies but I got to see most everything I own taken from one place to another.

In boxes.

I do enjoy writing as though I am writing on postcards.

Man am I tired.

Tomorrow then.

Tomorrow.

Whither Confusion?

You know what's confusing? Spending a day packing because after your Monday Morning radio show you're moving into a brand new house!

Well, not brand new. New to you, though!

That's a lot of confusion. You forget to write in your blog & everything!

Also, you use a lot of exclamation points. When you're confused.

You're not too confused to mention that Monday morning at 7:30 sharpish you'll be on the radio doing your Self Help Radio show about confusion, though. That's at 88.1 fm on the dial in Lexington & online at WRFL dot fm.

You hope the day's not so confusing you can't put it online later at self help radio dot net. But you can't make any promises either.

Wait. Who are you? What am I saying? I'm so confused.