Office Spacing

I moved offices today. That's an excuse. Hurricane Ike may be visiting Austin tomorrow so I need to go home & watch the news obsessively & with perverse glee to watch newscasters get blown around in high winds off Galveston. So I didn't have time today to write some nonsense here & I won't have time now. Instead I am wasting time making excuses.

But! Tomorrow! Self Help Radio is all about salt! & not at all about hurricanes! Although wouldn't it be weird if it were?

VIsit selfhelpradio.net around the time Houston is underwater & enjoy!

Needles To Say

Needles, I say! So sharp to the finger-prick, so hard for the threading! Did you know needles are mentioned over four thousand times in the Christian Bible? Let me rephrase that. Did you know I have written the word "needle" four thousand times all over the pages of my Christian Bible? It's true! Look it up!

But it does say that thing about shoving a camel through a needle's eye in like three of the four gospels. What up with that? Someone call the Roman SPCA! Jesus been shoving camels again! Is that why that Alaska woman hates moose so much? Are moose Alaska's camels?

"Go ply thy needle; meddle not with her," Shakespeare said, but too late! I had meddled with her. & she had thrown a drink in my face. But how it would have hurt if she had had a glass full of needles!

Needles also means hypodermic needles, attached to syringes, attached (ultimately) to Lou Reed. This can be of great disappointment to the uninitiated. I brought my needlepoint kit to a Needle Exchange Program expecting to trade some of my beloved Specialty Needles (I have one which is signed by all the cast members of Scooby Doo) (except Casey Kasem) (Casey Kasem is a douchebag) but instead I was told that I needed to be an IV Drug User or have a special Card which I could get at my local heroin dealer's. What a disappointment!

You are on pins & needles - & not on drugs - if you are nervous about something. Indeed, it seems to me two things are problematic here. One, who spilled all the needles & pins? Why didn't they clean them up? & two, why don't you watch where you're going? It's not like you can't see an entire floor covered in needles & pins! You probably want to live dangerously. I think you're an idiot.

Also, it's impossible, say, if you're needing to mend your threadbare coat, to use the needle on, say, your speedometer. Not to mention a VU meter! Those needles suck!

That's all the needle talk for today. I won't be "needling" you about "needles" further. Ha ha!

Whither Salt?

Salt! Salt! I just had salt on my lunch! What a coincidence!

Many people in the world today take salt for granted. There was a time when wars were fought for salt. People protested occupation by walking to get their own salt. Stores put salt in elegant containers rather than in disposable little square paper thingies. No more I say! We need to return to expensive salt! Valuable salt! Exotic salt! Priceless salt!

Okay, maybe not exotic salt. The people who extol the benefits of weird salt are kinda creepy, & probably also believe in the benefits of electrocuting their nipples when the moon is waning gibbous.

I shall construct a radio show to restore salt to its place of former glory & fame! Good old plain sodium chloride, ye shall be exalted!

At least this week. On Self Help Radio.

Preface To Salt: High Blood Pressure At Low Altitudes

"Blood pressure refers to the force exerted by circulating blood on the walls of blood vessels," says Wikipedia, & then presents to you some awesome terms which medical service folks get to use that no one else does. Note: this has very little to do with salt. I am just obsessing about blood pressure.

This has become more common in recent years, but I've always dug hypertension. It sounds like a super power, yeah? No! It's as bad a thing as real life gamma rays! Wikipedia, do me like your best girlfriend: "Hypertension, referred to as high blood pressure, HTN or HPN, is a medical condition in which the blood pressure is chronically elevated."

Even better, you could suffer from white coat hypertension. As opposed to black belt hypertension, jack boot hypertension, & the always nasty dirty undergarment hypertension, which is what I suffer from for reasons I can't be bothered to explain.

Hypotension is not nearly as interesting, mainly because hypertension sounds like your bodies about to explode & that's so totally Scanners.

Term number two: preeclampsia. Oh, it sounds like something rich white folks on the east coast spend a lot of money to get their kids into so they can go to the best schools, but my bitch Wikipedia knows the score: "Preeclampsia is a medical condition where hypertension arises in pregnancy (pregnancy-induced hypertension) in association with significant amounts of protein in the urine." Extra bonus points from mentioning urine!

Term number third: systole. Wikipedia! Testify: "Systole (rhymes with 'fiscally') is the contraction of heart chambers, driving blood out of the chambers." I know, it's only one of the measures of blood pressure, but doesn't "diastole" sound like the name of a Dutch prog-rock band? One is contraction, the other is expansion. Okay, maybe the prog-rock band would be called Systole-Diastole. But I think that diastole is boring. Systole rocks!

The coup de grace: sphygmomanometer. What the fuck?

Hey Wikipedia! Do it to me one more time: "A sphygmomanometer is a device used to measure blood pressure, comprising an inflatable cuff to restrict blood flow, & a mercury or mechanical manometer to measure the pressure." It comes from the Greek word for pulse, or the layperson's word for "fuckin' know-it-all just tell me which pills I gotta take."

By the way, waiting rooms are weird & it may be just me but there seem to be more women in them than men. Do men just not go to doctors? We don't, do we? We drop dead instead. Go us!

The Mad Rooster & The Dither Hen

That is the name of a short story that a genial fellow named Abraham Meddle was working on, his fourteenth &, he believed, most successful short story, the night he met a particularly embarrassing end while working (as he did his entire life) at the West Bubonic Paper Mill somewhere on or about a more or less empty township in the vicinity of West Texas.

The story was a simple one - a rooster who was not able to afford his meds (due to the Bush Administration's cruel restructuring of the Medicare/Medicaid needs policy) experienced a not unhappy resurgence of his schizophrenia & started to wreak havoc in the hen-house where he spent his idle time. The rooster, while not handsome, was the best the ladies in the house could hope for, but usually only when his demons were under control. When not, he tended to rip his (& others') feathers off their bodies, fly madly at the chicken wire, & issue denunciations of left-wing political candidates in a manner one matron described as "Ann Coulter-ish," which was not fit for polite company.

The dither hen was, as expected, a rather fussy & absent-minded old thing nearing the end of her laying cycle who managed to come up with a way to save the rooster without drugging him (using principles she gleaned from a cross between Christian Science & Scientology) & the body of the short story included inspirational & hilarious descriptions of the treatment & "cure" (Meddle was never interested in clear-cut endings) of the Mad Rooster, & possibly (it was unfinished) the eventual eating of the rooster & hen by a hungry family who were slowly starving thanks to the abandoning of the social safety net under the current administration in favor of "faith-based" initiatives, & the local churches frowning on the dither hen because Scientology is un-Christian & therefore leads its adherents to perdition.

Self Help Radio is glad to be able to summarize unfinished works as part of an ongoing series funded by the Confusion Group in association with Leanr To Rade, the adult literacy group run by dyslexics.

Self Help Radio dedicates its most recent show, Indiepop A To Z # 16, to these tireless advocates of whatever they care about. It's available, as are many other shows which these groups have nothing to do with either, at selfhelpradio.net. You may proceed there now single file.

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.