My Lucky, Lucky Email

Dr. John Chan CC wrote me this recently:

I am Dr. John Chan C.C a South Korean Republic and a Director of Hang Seng Bank Ltd from the Office of the International Remittance Department, I have secretly confidentially funds transfer to your private account in your country.

I will like us to invest these funds in a profitable life investments in your country, which i will beg of you not to betrayed once these funds transfer to your account from our correspondent bank. Please if it interested reply me to this my private Email: (johnchan_c@aol.com) for more details. Thanks.

Dr. John Chan C.C

I didn't respond, so he wrote me again, four days later, with the exact same message.  Please don't respond to his private email!  He meant that just for me.  Once I find out some profitable life investments in my country, I'm sure I can get back to him.  It's just that, in the United States, we have only profitable death investments.

Also, Wayne Tang wrote to me yesterday an email entitled:

URGENT NOTICE TO THIS EMAIL ADDRESS OWNER

An urgent notice!  I opened it immediately!  Here's what it said:

Sir,

This is an official request for legal representation on behalf of Usha Martin Ltd. Usha Martin Ltd is manufacturing company with principal interest in the manufacturing of wire rods, bright bars, steel wires, specialty wires, wire ropes, strand, conveyor cord, wire drawing and cable machinery. After a careful review, we decided to contact your law firm to represent our company in areas of collection. We would require your legal representation for our delinquent Customers and we are of the opinion that a reputable law firm like yours can represent us in collection of monies owed our company by overseas customers and also follow up with these accounts. We are of the understanding that a proper Attorney/Client agreement must be entered into by both parties and this will be done immediately we receive your response of acceptance.

Regards,

Wayne Tang

waynetang01@yahoo.com.ph

I am sad that he didn't get the news that Self, Help, & Radio, attorneys at law, were disbarred when it was discovered that we didn't go to law school but instead learned everything about the justice system from watching Boston Legal.

Also this past weekend, to my tremendous surprise, I won the lottery!  A lottery I never entered!  Here's the poop:

Subject:  COCA COLA COMPANY WORLDWIDE LTD.

From:  "COCA COLA"

Is it odd that a major corporation like Coca Cola (a company that has a bottling plant in Lexington that I am certain employs a fair number of our citizens) sends out its information from a site called "goshka.info"?  I should think they'd want to make sure people knew they were actually from coca-cola.com, their web presence.  Oh, I'm being too skeptical.  Let's see what I've won!

GOVERNMENT ACCREDITED LICENSED!!!

COCA COLA COMPANY WORLDWIDE LTD.

COCA COLA Programs & Events Department

COCA COLA company

P.O. Box 850

MANCHESTER MR2 8GD

TEL: +448719742699

Congratulation winner,

Your email address has won a cash prize of  Ј500,000.00  Five hundred thousand Great British pounds  GBP  in our end of the year Promotion 2013 COCA COLA COMPANY UK  International Email draw.

It is pending for your collection kindly fill the below information for claim.

VERIFICATION FORM

FULL NAME........

COMPANY NAME: ......

FULL ADDRESS:...........

SEX:............

AGE.......

OCCUPATION..............

TEL.............

COUNTRY.............

E-MAIL...........

Congratulations once again from all members and staff of this promotion.

Yours faithfully,

Contact: Richard .K. Anderson.

Email: cocacola.2013@outlook.com

Online coordinator for COCA COLA COMPANY WORLDWIDE LTD LOTTERY UK

500,000 Great British pounds!  That's a lot of money.  In Great British pounds, I mean.

Also, what happened to the goshka.info address?  Richard .K. Anderson (see how cool he is - he has a period before & after the K!) is now at outlook.com .  It seems extremely inefficient.  This probably explains the dire state of the American economy.

The nice thing is that I can use the money from the lottery win to try out profitable life investments to help Dr. John Chan CC find ways to use his money, & once that's settled, & I finish law school (no college debt for me!), I'll be able to represent Wayne Tang.

This was a good week.

The Deep Show

A shallow fellow attempts to explore depth on a radio show.  There is perhaps a joke somewhere, although I hope he isn't joined by a priest & a rabbi or walking into a bar.  Someone funnier than I am - an extremely large demographic - will have to finish that one.

I was in deep with deep songs & not-so-deep thoughts on this week's show.  You can listen to it now at the Self Help Radio web site.  Or you can go directly to the show - it's in two parts - by either choosing part the one or part the two.  The track list is below.

I was way out of my depth, it's true.  But thanks for listening!

(part one)

"Deep River" Paul Robeson _The Best Of Paul Roberson_
"How Deep Is The Ocean" Big Crosby _The Great Ones_
"Between The Devil & The Deep Blue Sea" Blossom Dearie _Give Him The Ooh-La-La_

"Beauty Is Only Skin Deep" Robert Mitchum _That Man, Robert Mitchum, Sings_
"Deep" Quetcy Alma _Explosivos (Deep-Soul From The Latin Heart)_
"River Deep, Mountain High" Ike & Tina Turner _Phil Spector: Back To Mono_
"Soul Deep" The Box Tops _The Best Of The Box Tops: Soul Deep_
"Deep Forbidden Lake" Neil Young _Decade_

"Bury Me Deep In Love" The Triffids _Calenture_
"Deep One Perfect Morning" The Jesus & Mary Chain _Darklands_
"Deep In The Heart" U2 _I Still Haven't Found What I Am Looking For_
"Deep Fascination" The Feelies _Only Life_

"Cut Me Deep" Jasmine Minks _CD86: 48 Tracks From The Birth Of Indie Pop_

(part two)

"We're Not Deep" The Housemartins _London 0, Hull 4_
"Devil In The Deep Blue Sea" Mousefolk _Hazy Tambourine Days_
"Bury Me Deep" Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes _Nixon_
"Deep House Victims' Minibus Appeal" Half Man Half Biscuit _Voyage To The Bottom Of The Road_

"How Deep Is Your Love?" Aberdeen _I Started A Joke_
"Pretty Deep" Tanya Donelly _Pretty Deep_
"Deep Purple" Rose Melberg _Portola_
"I'm In Deep" The Postmarks _Memoirs At The End Of The World_

"Deep Sleep" Devo _Oh No! It's Devo_
"I'm In Deep" Coldcut _What's That Noise?_
"She Devils Of The Deep" Future Bible Heroes _Memories Of Love_

"Skin Deep" Nick Lowe _Labour Of Lust_
"Deep Sleep" The B-52's _Mesopotamia_
"Skin Deep" Stranglers _The Hit Men 1977-1991_
"My Roots Are Strong & Deep" The Microphones _The Glow Pt. 2_

Whither Deep?

I was sitting at my riding desk one summer morning when a letter from Filbert arrived by courier.  Filbert was always an extravagant bastard but this took the cake.  The courier had ridden his motorcycle all the way from Filbert's estate in the Luckywood Hills.  It had to have cost him his late uncle's fortune.

The letter was filled with Filbert's usual fol-de-rol, blather, & insults (he referred to me twice as "a skeezy little bitch") but he intrigued me in that way he often did - tangentially, accidentally - when he spoke of being accused by the Wilsons as "too deep."

Too deep!  Our Filbert?  The man who couldn't describe anyone past hair color & make & model of speedboat?  Outrageous!  Intolerable!  I quickly asked my manservant Josephine to get the car & make haste to Filbert's ranch.

Filbert's ranch was a tastelessly decorated modern split-level acreage with fins.  I understood that that was not a very good description of it, but it was the best I could do for something almost indescribable.  Usually there was a police car parked out front, just in case.  On Halloween, the children wouldn't so much as avoid it as try to set fire to it.  Filbert was awful proud.

"Dorian, my friend," he said to me, mispronouncing my name (it's pronounce "Charles"), "I'm so glad you came!  I was about to slice open a watermelon & collect the seeds to put in a little jar I found buried in the back of my paper closet."

"Enough of your tomfoolery, you knave!" I shrieked, upstarting.  Actually, I did nothing of the sort, but I had been listening to Rutger Hauer's stirring audiobook of him reading "The Raven" over & over & over, & that's the last line I heard.  I thought it might fit; it did not.

I continued, "Why have you summoned me?  Your letter hinted at events best described as apocalyptic, or worse described as...  Well, you do it."

"Carefree & la-de-da," he said.

"Well?  What is it?"  I was close to shrieking, but nowhere near to upstarting.

"Old bean, you're too wound up.  You need something to enrage you further.  Come on inside," he said, leading me in, "let me introduce you to someone."

It was a radio.  Not just any radio.  A radio dressed as a man dressed as radio.

"What's all this balderdash!" I said.

"Look at what it says," Filbert said patiently - frankly, he was higher than the International Space Station at apogee.

But I read:

Listen (it said) to Self Help Radio this afternoon from 4 to 6 pm on the radio at 88.1 fm in Lexington & online at wrfl dot fm.  The show today is "the deep show."  It promises shallow treasures.

"You want me to listen to the radio with you?" I sputtered.

"Heavens, no!" he said.  "That's a man dressed as a radio dressed as a man dressed as a radio."

"We could listen on the computer," I suggested.

Filbert shrugged.  "Whatever," he said.  He then handed me a seedless watermelon.

Preface To The Deep Show: Google Deep

You learn so much about people from their Google searches?  I don't know.  I typed in deep, hit space (if I didn't, I'd get Deepak Chopra, & got ten common choices people who use Google make.  (Well, nine - "deep impact" is the same as each of the following terms.)

The first one alarms me - for its own sake & for the fact that people are looking it up.  Even worse than that, the statistic are awful - according to webmd.com, every year two million people get deep vein thrombosis, & as many as 200,000 die of it.  That's one in ten.  My legs will be feeling weird all day long.

I was unfamiliar with the nonsense television show Deep South Paranormal & don't want to say anything more about it.

Deep fried Oreos?  Deep fried pickles?  Can you say "deep vein thrombosis"?

I'm sure the surviving members of Deep Purple are happy to be continually searched for, if it's only for the lyrics to "Smoke On The Water."  Although it could just as well be about the song "Deep Purple" which may be where the band got their name.  (I really don't want to have to read through their Wikipedia entry to find out.)

Ooo, Deep Web.  Sounds naughty!  It probably is!

If it were up to me, Deep Space Nine would be the first thing that would pop up when you typed the word "deep"!

As someone who's barely made a shallow impact on pretty much everyone I've ever met, I find that the phrase "deep impact" depresses me - & yeah, I know it's space-related.  But still.

Some Important Information From The Past

"For young men [in the 19th century], the great anxiety was masturbation, a term coined in a British medical journal in 1766 in an article entitled 'Onanism: A Treatise on the Disorders Produced by Masturbation.'  The origins of the term are puzzling.  The Oxford English Dictionary says that it comes from the Latin masturbari, but then calls that term of 'unkn. origin."  The verb form masturbate didn't arise until 1857, but by that time the world had come up with any number of worrisome-sounding alternatives - selfish celibacy, solitary licentiousness, solitary vice, self-abuse, personal uncleanliness, self-pollution, and the thunderous crime against nature.  By whatever name it went, there was no question that indulgence in it would leave you a juddering wreck.  According to Dr. William Alcott's A Young Man's Guide (1840), those who succumbed to temptation could confidently expect to experience, in succession, epilepsy, St. Vitus' Dance, palsy, blindness, consumption, apoplexy, 'a sensation of ants crawling from the head down along the spine,' and finally death.

As late as 1913 the American Medical Association published a book that explained that spermin, a constituent of semen, was necessary for the building of strong muscles and a well-ordered brain, and that boys who wasted this precious biological elixir would turn from 'hard-muscled, fiery-eyed, resourceful young men' into 'narrow-chested, flabby-muscled mollycoddle.'"

From Bill Bryson's delightful Made In America, An Informal History of the English Language in the United States.  You can find it here or really your favorite bookstore.

Suits

Self Help Radio plays dress-up!  How many breasted can your suit have?

Listen to suity show suitable for you at Self Help Radio Suit Warehouse.  Everything priced to go!

Or, if it suits you, listen to show directly with no factory interference: part I & part II.

Every suit in the songs listed below.

Thanks for not leaving the fitting rooms a mess!

(part one)

"Got A Bran' New Suit (Alternate Version)" Louis Armstrong _The Complete Louis Armstrong Decca Sessions (1935 - 1946)_
"A Zoot Suit (For My Sunday Gal)" Andrews Sisters _1937-1944_
"Wet Suit" The Coctails _The Early High Ball Years_

"Four Button Suit" Bob Riley & The Atoms _Boston Rockabilly Vol. 1_
"Charcoal Suit" Brad Suggs With The Swingsters _The Complete Meteor Rockabilly & Hillbilly Recordings_
"The Cowboy In The Continental Suit" Marty Robbins _Streets Of Laredo & Other Ballads Of The Old West_
"The Man In The Little White Suit" Porter Wagoner _Green, Green Grass Of Home_
"A White Suit In Memphis" Simon Bonney _Everyman_

"One Piece Topless Bathing Suit" The Rip Chords _Bruce & Terry: Rare Masters_
"Zoot Suit" The High Numbers _USA Garage Greats 1965-1967 - We're Gonna Love This Way_
"Black Suit" Iguanas _Project Blue_
"Man In A Pin-Striped Suit" Dave Clark Five _Everybody Knows_
"My Birthday Suit" Cattanooga Cats _Cattanooga Cats_
"The Soul Of My Suit" T.Rex _Dandy In The Underworld_

"Three Piece Suit" Trinity _Joe Gibbs Original DJ Classics_
"The Suit" Public Image Limited _Metal Box_

(part two)

"Blue Suit" 14 Iced Bears _In The Beginning_
"Man In A Suit" Ambitious Beggars _Beg!_
"Sunflower Suit" Buffalo Tom _Buffalo Tom_

"Suit Of Lights" Elvis Costello _King Of America_
"Spaceman In A Satin Suit" The Celibate Rifles _Spaceman In A Satin Suit_
"Your Swimming Suit" Six Cents & Natalie _When Punk Fell To Earth_
"Deep Sea Diving Suit" The Magnetic Fields _Holiday_
"Monkey Suit" Pernice Brothers _Overcome By Happiness_

"Monkey Suit" The Didjits _Que Sirhan Sirhan_
"Flameproof Suit" Tsunami _World Tour & Other Destinations_
"Burn The Suit" Bis _This Is Teen-C Power_
"Dead Man's Suit" Cherry Ghost _Mojo: Made In Britain 2007_

"Suit Fits" The Guild League _Speak Up_
"Mens Suit Hire" Steinbecks _Branches & Fronds Brushing The Windows_
"Ill-Fitting Suits" High Llamas _Hawaii_