Overtaxed Friday

Forgive me, loyal stalker, but I am, as the Bard says, "poopty-whoopty," on this, the end of the first week of September. I hope to get something I have heard about - it sounds exotic like a drug - you are able to see vivid hallucinations, all the while your bodies apparently replenishes itself - it's called "sleep" - at some point during the weekend. Because I cannot apparently get any during the week. I don't really know any reliable dealers.

But first & foremost, I will concentrate on this week's Self Help Radio. I believe you'll like it - I've decided to forego the airbreak/song style & present it as a continuous mix. That way I might be able to get to the Indiepop D's before John McCain steal the next election.

Have a lovely weekend & visit selfhelpradio.net tomorrow for yummy indiepop fun.

Like Teeth On Cheese Cloth

I am sleepy. I have been waking up on Thursday mornings to listen to a radio show called The War On Sailing, which is based on a blog I like called The War On Sailing, which is, I am embarrassed to say, where I get about 1/16th of the news I need to make it through the day. But the radio show is on from 5 to 7 am so boy are my arms tired.

He's not very good with his blog, though. So I am not rewarded for staying awake in this manner. But I am thinking of offering him space on the Self Help Radio web page & archiving some of his shows. The host, Vance Chamberlain, is notoriously untrustworthy & once shaved a man because he thought the man's moustache was a danger to himself & others. So whether I can convince him is entirely up to him. My powers of persuasion have been at low ebb. I am thinking of working for the other side, frankly.

There's no reason for you to lose hope, though! Or wait, were you? You had a face that either suggested you were losing hope or that you were chewing some fruity gum & then drank a diet soda & you realized that it was the exact flavor of a cherry Slurpee. Which one was it? You're going to be a pain in the ass until House returns for the fall.

Which reminds me, two more studios passed on the script I have been pretending to write for Self Help Radio: The Radio Show: The Movie. Surprisingly, even after a long liquid lunch, they want to see a script! I even mentioned ninjas, boobies, zombies & boobies! Ah well. Back to looking for a home on the radio. Tell me if you see any signs up. I'm going to call Vance Chamberlain & pretend to be Condoleeza Rice. It'll make him howl.

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 16?

Jus' continuin' the series, kind sir. Please leave me in peace whilst I listen to the jangly pop. Thank you.

Man! I'm hungry! It's a good thing I don't have pica. Not only that, it's a good thing that I, as an older male, don't even have the chance, short of a brain short circuit, of contracting pica. That's a relief. I might still get cancer, you know, or diabetes, or the good ol' epizootic. But no pica for me!

Still, I have to wait till I go home to eat, for three reasons:

1) As a vegetarian, my options in the world around me are limited. Not as limited as when I became a vegetarian in 1986, but still.
2) Since reading Fast Food Nation, a book I cannot recommend more highly, I don't eat fast food. That dwindles my already small pool of available eateries. & I don't really want to go to a restaurant alone. I would feel lonesome. The waiter would spill coffee on me.
3) If I eat without the love of my life, I am likely to get a beatdown. Seriously. She's always hitting me. I think she likes to hurt me. Ow! Oh shit! She's able to punch me psychically! Ow! She's mean! I hope I get a brain tumor & it causes me to get pica!

I know. I'll go find some gum. Meanwhile, I continue listening to the jangly pop. You're bound to be pleased.

Preface To Yet Another Indiepop A To Z: Blood Tests

Blood tests are obviously very helpful. According to a very helpful web site, "blood tests are used to determine physiological & biochemical states such as disease, mineral content, drug effectiveness, & organ function." So of course a very helpful thing to do. However, the same very helpful website states: "Although the term blood test is used, most routine tests (except for most haematology) are done on plasma or serum instead of blood cells."

Is that so! Why not "plasma tests"? As someone who's naturally scared of needles entering my veins & drawing out my precious, precious water of life, I would much prefer someone getting rid of smelly plasma than delicious blood. Plasma is the rind of blood. You can test as much as you want!

Blood tests, they are telling me now, involve taking the blood first, & then, through a process of deceit & guile, getting the plasma from the blood, & then feeding the blood to the stray dogs that congregate outside the clinic, unless someone at the clinic wants to take the blood home for their own pets. This seems far more reasonable & forward-thinking than the other, more wasteful clinics where the blood is taken for granted & left out on a dish by the kitchen window to cool & spoil.

My own interest in blood tests is none of your business (or even your interest), so I refuse to make a big to-do stinkeroo about them here in this general forum. However, I will have any & all phlebotomists out there to understand that my veins are my veins, & they will not be trifled with as if they were mountains with minerals in them for your personal enrichment. That's all I have to say on the subject except this:

"Ow! Watch where you put that needle!"

Laborious Day

Greeting on what I hope is a "day off." I like to consider it "possible nap time." Although I probably won't get to nap.

What I do get to do is remind you that Self Help Radio was only a little sleepy when I interviewed the great Mr Impossible (tm) for the Impossible show, which was made available to your grubby little computer hands on Saturday over at selfhelpradio.net. Please enjoy. The reviews are pouring in here at SHR central, although they're reviews of "Hamlet 2" & not the Impossible Show. Therefore it would make no sense to share them with you.

If you had to labor on Labor Day, those of us who are just taking laborious breaths thank you. You made it possible for us to enjoy yet another hot, sticky, unpleasant late summer day, while another hot, wet, unpleasant hurricane threatened the lives of our neighbors in the gulf region. Hooray for you! Hooray for holidays!

Interview with Mr. Impossible!

O boy o boy o boy o boy o boy!

Self Help Radio is going to be impossibly awesome this weekend because I have just found out that - hold on to your haunches - I'm going to get a visit from the legendary Mr. Impossible! Star of stage, screen & informercial, first into battle & the last one to leave the movie theater after the credits fade, hero, father of nine, singer, songwriter, dancer, sport-fisherman, painter, sculptor, poet, movie critic, did I say dancer?, business executive, doyen of international finance, Nobel Prize nominee, husband, part-time homemaker, Santa Claus for the poor, political arbitrator, conservationist, auto enthusiast & amateur photographer Mr. Mother Fucking Impossible will be on Self Help Radio!

Don't even ask me how I made this happen. I'll tell you, though. Mr. Impossible is in town to speak to at-risk youth about California & he was having a long liquid lunch at my favorite local sandbar, the Blather, & I of course noticed him - although he doesn't wear the cape when he's having lunch! - & I offered to buy him a drink. I was nervous, thinking everyone does that & also that he might think I was coming on to him. He said, "A drink? You can buy me lunch!"

Oh wow!

We talked - well, he did, mostly - about everything - well, mostly about him - & I told him I did this little podcast & he was like, "I love the new media! What does it pay?" I told him it didn't pay anything - not even attention - but he was such a trooper - he liked my show so much! - that he promised to stop by tonight if I made him dinner & bought him a case of Cold Duck!

As you can imagine, I'm nervous as a school kid on the first day of Home Economics class, but I'll get a fabulous interview out of him. It'll be awesome! Do listen tomorrow to Self Help Radio for a show full of impossibly great music as well as an interview with Mr. Impossible!

PS - are you doing anything Saturday night? Might I suggest a benefit for KVRX, Student Radio for the University of Texas? It certainly looks like fun, & it's a great cause!

Strengthening Gustav Heads For Jamaica

Why does the new Gustav want to go to Jamaica, anyway? You've heard his rants & raves about reggae - "It all sounds the same!" he'd bellow, banging his fist on the table like a Khrushchev wishing for a shoe. Hey! He doesn't like hot weather, either!

But he's changed. You've all seen it. He used to be a one-hundred & forty pound emo kid named Jack. He seemed to like it. & yet, as some of you recall, it was a couple of years ago, watching some "news report" on a "news channel" about a baseball player & his alleged steroid problem, your friend Jack turned the recorder on & watched the "before & after" pictures again & again. The last time you saw him like that, you'll recall, was when you got really stoned & watched "Atomic Cafe" with him, & he tried to build his own atom bomb, & he somehow imagined that, if he could get his lead gloves on some uranium, he could enrich it in a process he thought was like enriching white bread. "I'll add vitamins to the radioactive goo!" he'd shout, in-between muttering to himself & falling asleep watching an infomercial about night-blindness.

He changed his name after the steroid documentary, & he changed his life. Whether he got some or not, you don't know. "It vill be easier to get zan uranium!" he told you after drinking an entire bottle of Jagermeister on a dare, in that fake accent he's adopted since the name change. That was the last time any of you saw him until he emerged months later, weighing forty pounds more, all the extra pounds in the grotesque muscles, & missing a neck.

Speaking of drugs, he never much liked pot, either. So why Jamaica? As well, he's not terribly religious, but wasn't he raised Mormon? He'd have absolutely no interest whatsoever in Rastafarianism. It's a puzzler.

You have to admit, though, it's not like he's more likable as "Gustav" than he was as "Jack." Perhaps owing to the mysterious disappearance of his neck, Gustav doesn't talk as much as Jack. Gustav spends a lot of time paying attention to all the new things his body is doing, not complaining to anyone who'll listen why the Hollies are underrated or why Brian Wilson's return to music destroyed commercial rock in the 21st century. Gustav seems to coo a lot. Kissing his muscles. Stuff like that.

& since he doesn't drink, you don't have to worry about him haggling over a check. He's not more likable, but he is, you guess, more tolerable. But why go to Jamaica?

Oh. Oh damn. It's just a Reuters headline about a hurricane. Never mind.

Whither The Impossible Show?

What is & isn't impossible - which is to say, what is & isn't possible - is neither a simplistic dualistic demarcation nor a tritely glib adolescent conundrum. It is, actually, at the very core of an exciting new philosophical slash scientific movement, Impossible Physics.

What makes this different from, say, Science Fiction? Good question! Science Fiction as a genre is in fact possible - it already exists! Haven't you seen Star Trek? It's on the television like all the time! & did you know that people write a lot of Science Fiction books that never get made into movies? It's true! So Science Fiction is possible. It's also probable.

But Impossible Psychics does not exist. Not even my naming it as an "exciting new philosophical slash scientific movement" can make it exist. For one thing, I barely exist myself, so any pronouncement or discovery I make is negligible. I could cure cancer & simply by virtue of being me, it would hardly get noticed. Until, say, someone found the cure by accident & took credit for it. I might get to be a footnote then.

That's why I am the perfect spokesperson for Impossible Physics. I couldn't be less influential, I couldn't be more ignored. Impossible Physics has zero chance of existing as long as I am in charge of promoting it. Which, by the way, I'm not. Which can't help Impossible Physics at all!

By the way, I was just guessing up there - you know, using the fancy-pants language & saying stuff like, "a simplistic demarcation of philosophical conundrum." What a load of hoo-ha! See, Impossible Physics can't have a core because it doesn't exist! It can't exist! The moment it exists, it ceases to be Impossible, so it's never Impossible Physics!

Look, let me explain it to you. Wait, better yet, I'll do Saturday on my show. That's cool. Visit me there. I got a lot of splainin' to do.

I leave you with the new slogan of Self Help Radio: "Anything's Impossible!"

Preface To The Impossible Show: It's Just Impossible For Me To Write In This Blog Today

Sorry about that.

Wait. What just happened?

Cartography For Fun & Profit

ITEM! Stores in America are failing at a slightly humiliating rate! What does the future hold for future entrepreneurs of the future? How bearish can the market bear?

ITEM! Banks won't loan money to just anyone anymore! How will the homeless afford their McMansions now? Can Christopher Nolan's powerful Batman franchise save us?

ITEM! In spite of all the money he has raised, "Batman" is still unrecognizable to my computer's spell-check!

ITEM! I can't remember what I was talking about! Oh yes! The failing United States economy! Boy I'm glad I didn't quit my job when I thought I had to quit my job! I'd be working at one of those Starbucks that they're now closing down!

ITEM! Yes, I have no professional qualifications & would end up working at a coffee shop!

ITEM! But there's no need to panic! Let Self Help Radio panic for you!

ITEM! Yes, the "Panic" show of the Self Help Radio is available for listening to at this very moment! Four out of five dentists recommend it rather than toothpaste for listening to! & really, it's only because I just know four dentists! The fifth dentist didn't want to be my friend! What an asshole!

ITEM! To listen, just push the panic button! Help is on the way!

Bob's Your Uncle's Best Friend

There are little labels sitting on the table. Next to a girl called Mabel - she's the subject of this fable - & she receives a cable from The House Of The Seven Gables about the Tower of Babel. Mabel isn't able to decipher the labels - she's wearing her Aunt Grable's sable. Over her head. Dreaming of Fee Waybill.

If she had only read the labels, she would see censure, condemnation, denunciation. For the labels are not for record albums or mason jars filled with dried herbs, they're not for notebooks or Christmas gifts, no, they're for Self Help Radio. In particular, the Blog Writing Department.

It's no secret that fed-up employees quitting, retaliatory firings, chemical castration, & sudden infant death syndrome have haunted the Blog Writing Department of the Self Help Radio Corporation since its inception. But the reader - readers if Mom is near a computer - is used to at least five days of derivative, unfunny, unhelpful blog entries. But this week! Well! All that the Blog Writing Department could manage since Wednesday was that asinine Dr. Seussian thing up there. Mabel at a table with labels! What are we, magpies?

& Monday. What happened to Monday. "Busy at work"? They work in a Blog Writing Department!

The Management wishes to extend an apology to the fine reader of this blog-type device & wants to reassure you that, thanks to a well-placed call to the dying Robert Novak & extraordinary rendition, those Blog Writing Department "creatives" won't be disappointing you any more.

There may be a slight delay in tomorrow's "Panic" show - no more than a day - but that's not the Blog Writing Department's fault. Self Help Radio host Gary Dickerson will be in Motorcycle class. Don't ask.

Just don't ask.

Our apologies for this week! Our promises for the next! Our kingdom for horse!

Whither Panic?

For the rough & tumble, ready-to-wear man or woman on the street, panic is not an attractive proposition. It sullies the mind & wrinkles the closely-knit boundaries of circumspection & polite conversation. Furthermore, panic rarely if always delivers the goods as highly placed as "shouting fire in a cramped theater" (to quote the Supreme Court with a flourish). Mostly, the panic that one (or two) may feel is personal & inconvenient & has only slightly a lot of inherent comedic possibility than the average public display of hemorrhage.

Take, for example, the tale of Paula Piperview, a criminal defense attorney obsessed with defending strippers, hookers & gay-porn actors (not necessarily in that order, although wow! what a trial that would be!). Ms Piperview was possessed of what her parents called "a genetic predisposition" toward panic attacks whenever she heard a description, however censored, of sexual practices. Though her partners at the not really all that prestigious law firm of Barback & Hooptie urged her to go for safer fare, like arson, perhaps, or driving while intoxicated, Ms Piperview insisted (on the advice of a radio self-help host, actually) of "confronting her fears head-on." Interestingly, the nervous sweats she often got in the court room were interpreted by the simpletons in the jury as tears, & the chest pain & shortness of breath garnered lots of sympathy, so Ms Piperview won more cases than not & became sought after by the very clients who caused her attacks. Psychologists call this "a feedback loop," because of the official announcement that "irony is dead" at the year-end conference in 2003.

Another fine example is James "Jamie" Leggings, a short order cook who was forever searching for the proper medication to handle his chronic ennui. Panic attacks were often when first adjusting to a new prescription, & yet Leggings would not stay on the pills long enough to acclimatize his body to the drug. Fearing (understandably) that he might be a "panic junkie," Leggings started a chapter of Panickers Anonymous in the Duluth area & had a massive panic attack on the first meeting night in anticipation of a large turnout. Luckily three people on their way home from an unsurprisingly awful Blue Man Group show found him before he gnawed his tongue off.

These cases, though typical, are not typical of the panic-sufferer's experience except as anecdotal, & later, when there are enough of them, statistical evidence. Indeed, as Dr Corn Matherson of Lower Arikaree River College (Kansas) has opined, "While it's easy to make light of people, because they're all so damned foolish & self-important & just plain sick in the head - sick, I tell you! truly fucked-up beyond salvage, surely - the fact that so many people panic indicates that human beings will continue to be tedious for decades more."

Later in the series (concluding here) we'll discuss probable causes of panic & we'll panic a little ourselves, as deadlines approach & the sad surfers return home from the hurricane season, hungover & lonesome until Christmas, or their suicide - whichever comes first.

Preface To Panic: Nerves & Apologies

Weaselschnitzel! That's what you should call me! I got too caught up at work & stuff & didn't write in this blog yesterday. I am a weaselschnitzel! You should color my hair red & call me candy corn! Dilapidation would be too good for me!

Truth is, I've been a little panicky about the end of August, for, when August goes, so too do all my dreams. Or so I sometimes imagine. I am stuper-stitious about August, because August the month was named after the William Faulkner book Light In August which was named a hell of a long time after the disappeared month left a hole not only in my calendar, but in my heart.

Still, we continue with the Self Help Radio shows though the tide has turned & then turned away. I struggle to keep up, but no one, nay, not any one, nay I say! nor hears my cries for closeness & recommendation. That said, a mildly entertaining show about chairs exists now & for a while at selfhelpradio.net. Perhaps you would enjoy it, in exactly the same way you have never enjoyed the sound of a falling tree.

Also, the power of the Self Help Radio does often confuse & contort, so folks who imagine a show about panic will cause panic (when just the opposite is intended) are the same who imagine a show about chairs will hurt all chairs. Some chairs were naturally harmed during the making of the show. This cannot be avoided. But the show is NOT anti-chair. Self Help Radio must needs always be a celebration. Or a chance for a diversion. Either way.

I am sorry I missed yesterday. Please accept this lovely inedible gift basket from The Imaginary Shop as a token of my affectation.

Distinctively Automotive Reactions

As promised: the August Self Help Radio Extra mix is up for your listening-to enjoyment. Please hire me to make mixes for your supermarket or retail establishment. I can make old ladies blush under their rosacea. Unless that's not what you want.

As threatened: tomorrow's Self Help Radio will be about those stalwart defenders of democracy, chairs. Yes, chairs. Imagine where America would be sitting if we didn't have chairs! We'd be standing, that's where! & what true American could stand a world without chairs! Not this reclining patriot!

See you tomorrow then. Get some sleep. You look a little, I dunno, ragged. Oh wait. I'm seeing my reflection in my monitor. Holy shit!

The Worst Joke Ever: A Chronology

I got into a habit in the last century where I would get a lot of free email accounts, then subscribe them to some "daily affirmation" or "joke-a-day" service because, in those days, the accounts could be suspended in they were not used. A million of those "free email" sites came & went, sadly. My favorites were muslimonline.com (I so wanted to be christ@muslimonline.com, but someone beat me to it) & startrekonline.com (although of course the best emails there were already taken - even yoda@startrekonline.com!). Of course, I took to reading the daily whatevers (I'm not proud), & I have two thoughts about them, since I checked one of my remaining accounts just now & it's still subscribed to one of those daily email services.

The first thought is: some of those daily emails are pathetic, some are just saccharine & unbearable, none are helpful or interesting to people who have IQs with more than two digits, but at least one was downright scary. It doesn't exist any more, but one I subscribed to could have been called "The Scariest Possible Conclusions Drawn From Daily Bible Verses." I don't have any of them saved, alas! (the account disappeared - maybe I was cute & subscribed it to my muslimonline account!) but here's a paraphrase:

TODAY'S VERSE: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind, it is abomination." Lev. 18:22
TODAY'S LESSON: You must kill all homosexuals.

Not that unsubtle, of course, but scary enough for me, & I've seen most if not all of the seven billion kinds of religious craziness, to go, "Whoa!" Day after day. It was awesome!

The second is: those joke of the day emails are painfully lame. I know some so-called comedians & even their slightly exhausting attempts at funny ha ha are brilliant compared with most of these. I just wish they'd steal something from a book. It makes me sad. Here was today's (paraphrased):

A dude stole a bird. He ran afowl of the law!

Seriously. They used a few dozen more words, but that was the joke. & it's like that most every day!

I spent a little free time today working on the August Self Help Radio Extra. I'll put it up tomorrow. I'm sure you can't wait. Meanwhile, I'll be starting a Self Help Radio Joking Affirmation Of The Day email list soon enough. Sign up for it at your own peril.

Whither Chairs?

This week's Self Help Radio is dedicated to the loving memory of Alfred "Thorny" Swaller, the most famous man in the world ever born without a heinie.

For years young "Thorny" watched as other kids, kids with rear ends, were able to do all the fun things that he could not. Among the joys denied "Thorny" were: flatulence, ass-slapping, defecation, buggery, pinchy-pinchy, mooning, &, of course, sitting. Alfred "Thorny" Swaller was one of the few young men in America who never, ever used a chair.

"There are many delicate & painful consequences involved in being born without a posterior," says Dr. Leonard Felch, a leading specialist in the treatment of birth defects. "Nature will re-route your waste expulsion mechanism to wherever it can. Which can be disgusting."

But why, Dr. Felch, couldn't "Thorny" sit?

"Most of all, his condition caused the body to lean forward when he walked, & so he tended to remain upright when possible. Or lean. 'Thorny' was a leaner. Trying to sit might 'bow' his body in such a way that it would not only have been quite painful but it may have made it impossible for him to get back up without help. & 'Thorny' was fiercely independent."

Three months ago, the forty-five-years-young "Thorny" Swaller wrote an email to the Self Help Radio offices, then in exile in Kitchener, Ontario. The letter, which cannot be reproduced because it was illegible, touched the staff of the well-regarded but under-nourished radio show, who determined to make a show for "Thorny" before he died. Unfortunately, Alfred "Thorny" Swaller died, ironically enough, from prostate cancer, which the doctors had missed, because they had assumed he either didn't have a prostate gland, or it was simply some place else. Oh he had one.

A "regime change" at the Self Help Radio offices brought down Scooter Lothario, executive in charge of thematics, who already was in trouble because of the "Dynamite" show debacle (TNT is not dynamite! Stupid stupid stupid!), & he was replaced by sentimental favorite Silver Fredlington, who promptly decided that the next show, regardless of theme, be dedicated to Swaller.

Fredlington was fired earlier this week when it was discovered the show would be all about chairs.

Nonetheless, this week's Self Help Radio is dedicated to the loving memory of Alfred "Thorny" Swaller. Here's hoping that, wherever you are, you can finally sit down.

Preface To Chairs: Have A Seat!

There was once an increasingly violent discussion between two friends about punctuation. In particular, the taller of the two friends was telling the shorter of the two friends that the shorter of the two friends used the exclamation point way too often to suit the taller of the two friends' taste. The taller of the two friends told the shorter of the two friends that the continual gratuitous use of the exclamation point pissed him off.

"Really!" said the shorter of the two friends. The taller of the two friends started hitting the shorter of the two friends & did not stop until the shorter of the two friends could now be called "the friend who was now a bloody pulp."

"My God!" said the friend who was not a bloody pulp under his breath when he realized what he had done to his friend who was now a bloody pulp. "I can't believe I did that just because of an exclamation point!"

The New Yorker noted that "this story is amusing enough for pleasant company at cocktail parties, ski lodges, & barn burnings." The original writer of the tale, Savage H. Puncture, while agreeing with the review, quickly point out that the reviewer, summarizing the tale, left out the important ending & its import. In fact, there were two more paragraphs about a quizzical chair who watched the two friends with interest, especially when the blood began to be spilled.

Puncture's final paragraph told us that the chair did not get the same joke the reader of the tale should, & that that was sad, because it meant that chairs had no sense of irony. Chairs could be used ironically, or placed ironically, or discussed ironically, but they did not themselves understand the irony of a man angry at exclamation points using them when he realized where his anger led him.

Savage H. Puncture himself was murdered by a friend who didn't like his writing at all.

A Wealthy Of Sharing

Hey! I had to wake up this morning early for the first time in thirteen years! It was awful! It's all dark outside & my girlfriend's still in bed with me! It was just so unseemly!

Why did I wake up so early? It was to listen to my former barber & current pal Zeke Moonshine as he subbed one of KVRX's great shows, Heliocentric Hootenanny. Zeke was there with his untrustworthy sidekick Boy Howdy, who's weirder than a square egg. I went ahead & archived the show over at my Self Help Radio page, since I liked it so much. Or I would have, if I had heard it. I fell back asleep because I couldn't find a way to remove my pillow prematurely from my head. It would've been like abortion or self-mutilation or something.

Might I also remind you, if you're visiting the Self Help Radio so-called web site, that this past week's Self Help Radio, about blossoms & blooms, is available there for however you want to play with it. It's a good show, & you'll learn all about flower pinching. Or are you brave enough? Hmmm?

Hurrah! I am done with this blog entry! Now I need to go stand outside in the painful August heat & see if I can keep my eyes open by burning my lower eyelids so it hurts for the upper lids to touch them.

Olympic Scandal!

It's true! There's shame & scandal involving the Olympics! But not the shame & scandal you'd expect! No - NBC, which is showing the Olympics on the teevee over the next three hundred days, is pre-empting the best thing on television this summer: new episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent!

Look, I am as sad as you are of the fucked-up Chinese government & how they treat their people, & I wish & hope that somehow the word could get out & life could get better for the Chinese. But you know what? NBC doesn't care. Most certainly our government doesn't care. & what's worse, we owe the Chinese government a shitload of cash money. NBC is doubtless under strict orders not to get too "moral" or soon they'll be renamed the Nanking Broadcasting Company. I am sad & I wish & I hope but you know nothing is going to change because of the goddamned Olympics. The only thing sports changes is sweat into dollars - mostly for people who don't have to break a sweat.

With that all said, why can't I see new episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intent instead? Mike Logan is leaving again! Eames is still mad at Goren! I still have a difficult-to-explain-to-my-girlfriend crush on Wheeler! Why celebrate & obfuscate the oppressive Chinese regime when more important things are happening in my imaginary emotional slash crime fighting life!

Look, I know they're shown on USA. I make sure I record them from USA. But my bullshit cable company doesn't have USA in high def. So the only chance I'm going to get to gaze longingly at Vincent D'Onofrio - er, I mean, Julianne Nicholson - in crisp, scarier than life video, is when it's shown on the bullshit local NBC affiliate. You get me? I've been taping one episode, then waiting eight days to see it in high def. & now the motherfucking Olympics has fucked that up for me.

I protest. I protest vehemently. Also, I won't be watching the Olympics grand opening sale-a-bration tonight, no. I'll be working on tomorrow's Self Help Radio, which is all about blossoms & blooms, something they know nothing about in China, & it'll be available tomorrow afternoon exclusively at selfhelpradio.net. But it'll be sad. For there will be no high def Law & Order: Criminal Intent for it to look forward to when it is done.

Weep for me! Weep for China! Weep for this world of fucked priorities! But mostly, weep for me. Seriously.

Saaaaay, Should You Be In North Carolina Or Something By Now?

Wow, I thought you'd never ask! If there weren't already an elephant in the room here with us, that would be the elephant in the room! (The elephant wants a peanut.)

No one but you cares, but I'll write about it here anyway. You'll recall that my lovely squeeze, Magda, had made plans to get her PhD this summer (she got it, a doctorate in whiskerology) (note, I started dating her because I thought she said "whiskeyology") (I'm an idiot) & had found a post-doc at Duke University, which is in North Carolina. I did lots of stuff in preparation for this - I drank more, I left my show & the radio station which kindly aired it, I began to make preparations for leaving my job, & I also drank more. A major freaky thing I was doing was mentally preparing myself to leave this place I've lived more than half of my life. I was riding the bus & going like (in my head, not to the drunk next to me) "This is the last time I'll ride the number 343 home from the comic convention!" Stuff like that. I wanted to be as supportive to Magda as possible, & I was definitely excited about going somewhere else.

The way things went, though, was somewhat different. We travelled to Durham in June, & toured the Duke campus, & visited the free-roaming lemurs in the Duke Forest, & had a swell time in that city built smack dab in a forest. But on the second day, Magda was deeply unhappy. We had one of those patented couple-related "long talks." It took a long time. I think we were up until 4am. I think she ate all the donut holes they had left at the nearby Kroger. In any event, she wasn't sure she wanted to be an academic. She had been complaining all during the writing of her dissertation of wanting to do something else - most often she mentioned being a veterinarian - rather than being a full-time anthropologist. I knew the only important thing was her being happy, so I let her argue with herself with only minor input, being devil's advocate for whatever position was winning at the time. It's only been a couple of months now, but it feels very blurry to me. It was a long night.

She decided not to take the job & to return to school to become a veterinarian. Luckily I had not quit my job or else I might have ended up in North Carolina on the bum circuit. She'll need to take two years of catch up classes before she gets to vet school, so I suppose she can reconsider at that time. But frankly I think she'll do it. The chick likes being in school.

I have kept doing Self Help Radio as a podcast (in case you haven't noticed) but it probably won't return to the air for some time. Worry not, though! There are other surprises in store! The Self Help Radio family of broadcasters & alcoholics is ever-growing & you can watch the weirdo progress at regular intervals at selfhelpradio.net!

& as for me, yeah, I'm still in Austin. Sorry to disappoint that guy on the corner of 51st & Cameron who thinks I stole his spot. Dude, I was just crossing the street to urinate into the Home Depot concrete! I always carry a sign that says, "US VETRAN GOD BLES!" It reminds me of dear old dad. Or dear old mom. Or someone dear & old.

That's why I am still here. Why are YOU still here?