I Promised A Treat!

My pal Dick Dickenbock (who is kind of a weirdo) allowed me to let you listen to (if you want) & view (at the very least) his subbing of the popular KVRX show "The Heliocentric Hootenanny" which airs Thursday mornings from 7 to 9 am on (obviously) KVRX 91.7 fm & online at kvrx.org. His show, which was trying to fit the format that the normal (if you can call him that) host follows, is available for your listening pleasure at the selfhelpradio.net place. Please to enjoy.

Also, you know, this week's show will appear in a matter of hours. I should perhaps get some sleep.

Thanksagiven

Happy Thanksgiving! I think I may have some treats for you tomorrow. Stay tuned up.

Whither Dysfunctional Family Holiday 2008?

I mean, what am I, some sort of hypocrite, since I don't celebrate Thanksgiving & I don't go home to be with the family during this long ass weekend?

No, I am doing it for you. You suffer with the family. I will provide the soundtrack.

Silly.

Preface To Dysfunctional Family Holiday 2008: Painkillers Are Our Friends

Look at this remarkable website: http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/family/

It says this: "Our collection of Family Poems describe the special relationship between brothers and sisters, the love for ones [sic] mother or father, the love of a mother for her child, the love between a grandmother and grandfather for their children. Emotions range from the beautiful memories of childhood innocence to the horrible memories of childhood abuse." Oh fucking boy!

& sure enough, it begins. Apparently eschewing good taste for alphabetical order (I approve), the site has as its two top headings "Abandonment" & "Abortion." I should ask these guys to do my show this week!

About "abandonment": "Family is who we look to when we need help. We expect our parents to raise us, our grandparents to love us, and our brothers and sisters to always be there for us when the chips are down. They are our blood and we depend on that connection. When a family member doesn't live up to our expectations we feel abandoned. When a parent, grandparent or older brother or sister puts their needs in front of our own, we feel abandoned and alone. In such a case, we are likely to feel sad, alone and anger." Blah blah blah. Look to family when you need help! They're usually the cause of the problem. Next!

About "abortion": "Abortion Poems. Poems about abortion by Adults and Teens. Poems for Mothers who have had abortions. Poems on abortions and unwanted pregnancy. Poems by teens about abortion. Abortion will always raise strong emotions." & though there are only six poems (six! come on!) in that section, I have to appreciate this dedication, from the poem by Kira which has the immortal line "Abortion is a motherfucker": "This poem is dedicated for anyone who had a abortion and felt remorse afterwards."

I didn't find any poems about unwanted pregnancy, by the way. I shall write some!

I dedicate these poems to you, Self Help Radio listener. Read them to your family this weekend. Oh you know you wanna.

Happy Evolution Day!

Well, I'll be a monkey's nephew, if today isn't Evolution Day! On this day in 1859, Charles Darwin's seminal work "On The Origin Of Species" was first published. Early copies were naturally burned, & (not a lot of people know this) but early great sales were for fundamentalist bonfire circles, who were very happy to take a break from burning Voltaire's Candide for a while. I am happy to report that the fundamentalists then, like the religious today, refused to read the book at all. They were afraid Satan would fuck their brains with his hot, throbbing ideas. & they weren't wrong!

This has nothing at all to do with last week's Self Help Radio, which was all about stillness, & which is still waiting for you to listen to it, trembling imperceptibly, at selfhelpradio.net. Listen!

& happy Evolution Day! See you in hell!

My Heart Stood, Still

So I'm looking around for songs about "stillness" & I am continually faced with the idiomatic fact that the condition of stillness - the lack of of apparent absence of movement - which is asked for in a sentence like:

Damn it, Winston, stop wiggling around! Sit still!

- is a different word (though probably still related, since time & motion are interdependent) than that in a sentence like:

Winston won't stop wiggling! Still, if it means he's happy, he shouldn't sit.

Ack! Anathema to your average theme-oriented radio show! We want specifics, not vagueness! & what's this with cross-part-of-speech behavior? I know yesterday was Transgender Awareness Day, but should a part of speech be able to change its "orientation" with impunity?

Uh oh. I shouldn't have written that. The gerunds are going to be mighty irked. I don't know why I can't keep my yap shut when it comes to insulting grammar. Oh course they're P.C.! That's an abbreviation!

Well, never mind me & my impending lawsuits. Visit selfhelpradio.net tomorrow in the afternoon to listen to a celebration of stillness. It will be peaceful. Tranquil. Other nice words.

I can still promise that, right?

Extra! Extra! Read All About Self Help Radio Extra!

Yes, friends & sailors, it's that time again, the sort-of middle of the sort-of month wherein your faithful spoon-feeder descends on an uncollected mass of songs he's heard lately & emerges soiled but smelly with another Self Help Radio Extra mix.

Self Help Radio Extra is not supported by any unions, trade organizations, chambers of commerce, fraternal conspiracy organizations, record labels, radio lapels, lapel labels, nor elementary school principals, & for that reason we can freely choose what tickles what we call our "fancy" & also probably what you call our "fancy" even though I'm absolutely certain we mean two different things.

No matter! Self Help Radio Extra exists & that's enough for you. Go! Go listen to it now! If not, later! If not, earlier! Just enjoy!

Whither Stillness?

Shh. Can you hear that? Of course you can't. There's no breeze at all. The night. The night is perfectly still.

As is this blog. Shh.

Preface To Stillness: A Slight Flutter

Old school listeners of the old-skool Self Help Radio, when it was in the Wednesday 1 to 3pm slot, will not be surprised that I still keep up with the "Weekly Review" which happens weekly at harpers.org. (I have become a big fan of the magazine, & read it almost from cover-to-cover every month.) I used to read the Weekly Review on the air, for my & everyone's edification, & miss doing it from time-to-time, especially with news reports like this one, summarized in the Weekly Review thus:

A German shoplifter with no arms stole a 24-inch television. “It's hard to believe,” said a police officer, “that the sight of an armless man walking along with a giant TV clamped to his body did not get anyone's attention.”

That's just wonderful. However, the week's news wasn't great for every differently abled felon, as this report shows, summarized in the Weekly Review:

A man in a motorized wheelchair robbed a Space Coast Credit Union branch in Merritt Island, Florida, telling employees that he was rigged with explosives; police caught him ten minutes later and recovered the stolen money from his prosthetic leg.

Space Coast Credit Union? Or Space Ghost Credit Union? I wonder.

I just wanted to give a big ups to the Harper's website today. It's a lot of fun. & since I'm a subscribed, I have access to all their archives. Nyah!

Anyone Could Have Directed That Movie

MAN I am sleepy. But my teeth are clean. Or they were clean as of 1pm today. Now I've been chewing gum & drinking soda. But even so, they're cleaner than they were at 12:30pm today. I have the bag with the toothbrush & floss to prove it!

MAN it's been a hell of a day. I spent the morning talking to credit card people & then cable people. If you can call them people. I have to pretend they're people, though, as they know the mystical integers that control my life: the last four digits of my Social Security number. If anyone doubts that we're not one day going to be slaves & laborers for computer overseers, just mediate on the last four digits of your Social Security number. All will be revealed.

MAN it's weird that I keep saying "man." It sounds vaguely sexist. Was there ever a time when sexist was sexy? For women who believe that being hateful & condescending is manly, maybe? I wonder if that has more to do with their self-esteem or their fathers. But I don't wonder too much. It's just a passing thought into which I put very little thought. Still, I need to mix things up.

WOMAN but saying that seems odd. I think I'm going to break into the John Lennon song.

WOMAN I can hardly express my tender feelings & my thankfulness for showing me the meaning of successssssssssss.

Ah well. I've written in my blog. Dooby-dee-doo. Go listen to last week's Self Help Radio show, all about tides. It's just me, Squeaky, & music. How can it be wrong?

Strange Little People, Eating Their Own Cheese

The regular folks at the Urban Dictionary are usually of great help when I need to round out a show. But not this week! Because a "tide" (which the show will be about tomorrow) is a thing about which there is not a lot of confusion, & the idioms that you find with the word ("turning of the tide," "time nor tide waits for no one," even uses like "eventide") have to do with the regularly of the physical process. But how do they define it at the Urban Dictionary?

TIDE, n.
1. What most white Caucasian people smell like. Comes from the brand of laundry detergent they all use, Tide.
Ex. Yo this cracka smell like tide!
2. Good looking person (used chiefly in Scotland)
Ex. That fellow is well tide!"
3. a. To prepare a pile of cut marijuana for use in a blunt, or other smoking preference involving the tuck method or tucking; often done with a credit card.
b. To create a pile of cut weed with a credit card, often preceding a tuck.
(The act of "tiding" was given its name by the resemblence of an ocean tide going back and forth, this is the motion one uses (back and forth) when tiding.)

Okay, the last one is related to "tides." The first one too, though indirectly. Check this one out:

"Tides low, crabs on the rocks"
1) Associated with the verb "to leave." Used primarily when people want to leave a dull party.
Ex. Person A: This party sucks!
Person B: Yeah, tide's low, crabs are on the rocks!
2) An expression alerting others that the person's testicles are itchy & he's about to scratch them, generally used in public.

Just like there are a lot of songs about tidal waves, there are some modern idioms in the Urban Dictionary:

tidal wave, n. 1. A feeling of intense hunger that rushes over you.
Ex. Dude, I just got tidal waved, want to go to an Indian food buffet?
2. A woman's thong visible over the back of her pants.
3. The fat roll that goes up the back of a woman during sexual intercourse from behind.

I have no idea what meaning # 3 means.

But remember! Self Help Radio is new tomorrow afternoon! Visit us at selfhelpradio.net!

The Self Help Radio Email Archive Project: Submission Five

Still trying to charm the girls, I see. I miss writing these kinds of emails. I wrote this for a curly-headed blonde of German descent back in the summer of 1998. It did not end well. It was called:

YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE WON!!

Are you a CURLY-HEADED BLONDE of GERMAN descent? Do you often wish that PORNOGRAPHY were more ARTISTICAL? Do you LOOK BOTH WAYS before crossing your EYES & dotting your TEAS? Say, how much WOOD could a WOODCHUCK chuck at a guaranteed low wage & meager benefits?

If your answer is YES to all these questions (& 47 to the last one), then HAVE WE GOT A PRODUCT FOR YOU!!

First, put down that CHECKBOOK. Put away that ABACUS. Say goodbye to that shareware copy of TETRIS PLUS. Find some other place to store that IMMANUEL KANT reader. Clear your desk of those FISHER FAT-FREE GOLDEN ROAST LIGHTLY SALTED PEANUTS. Wash your hands of that LEFT-HANDED SCISSORS & GLUESTICK combination. Because your WILDEST DREAMS (as seen on TV) are about to come rushing out of your HEAD & into CYBERSPACE!!

Yes, DICKENBOCK INDUSTRIES, the same people who brought you the GLIB REMARK, the ASSHOLISH STARE & the INSOLENT INANE IDEALOGUE, is back with a PRODUCT so shiny it'll put a dent in your EYEBALL; a PRODUCT so tasty it'll make you wish you hadn't had BARBECUED RIBS for breakfast this morning; a PRODUCT so expensive that all three BUSH SONS would have to rob the UNITED STATES of a few billion more to put a DOWN PAYMENT on it; a PRODUCT so delightful it makes sitting in the BACKYARD with a HOSE & a KIDDIE POOL seem like a walk in COMPTON in the NUDE; a PRODUCT so passive-aggressive you'll feel like MOM & DAD never left the farm.

& YOU, , have automatically qualified to be in the ELIMINATION ROUND of the SEMIFINALS of the FIRST QUARTER TEST TRIALS. Send no money now. Or, hell, why not, send money now. You are almost certainly promised a place in the running. Certain restrictions apply. Offer not available to former video store clerks. Please see your lawyer for more details; if you cannot afford a lawyer, the court will appoint one for you.

BUT THERE'S MORE!

Your allowance will double! You'll be able to eat candy without rotting your teeth! You'll play piano like Liberace! You'll slim down to 3 pounds! You'll smell like a gerbil (a relatively clean gerbil, not one kept in a dirty cage utterly neglected by the three under-ten kids in the house). You'll learn more swear words than a Franciscan monk! You'll have enough money for the bus! AND MUCH MUCH MUCH MORE.

Send us your name, address, phone number, times when you & other members of your household are not at home, your measurements, an embarrassing photo, a bit of skin off the back of your neck (for DNA purposes), a sample of your handwriting (writing out "Cosy lummox gives smart squid who asks for job pen" a few times is fine; also, sign your name as you would on a check), your SAT score & your favorite recipe for oatmeal cookies (mm-mmm) to the address below, & wait for your package in the mail!

Oh, , this is indeed YOUR LUCKY DAY!

Whither Tides?

Oh crap! I didn't have time to write in my blog today! I can't explain why I'm doing a show about tides! No time! No time!

Gotta distract you somehow! I know! Watch this video about smelling vibrations!

& I'll see you tomorrow.

Preface To Tides: Spring Or Neap?

Today on the Self Help Radio blog (that's this place): a poem by little Georgie Snark, aged 7, sort of about tides:

There is no tide at the continental divide
Said the man to his bride
She thought he lied so she goodbyed
Though his eyes eventually dried he could not hide
His pride as he sighed
& looked on the bright side
With his future open wide
But his car did collide
With a tour guide in his stride
Though he could have made the auto slide
He took to long to decide
The victim was cast aside
& his safety was denied
The police asked the man why'd
He run the guide over & he replied
"I am like Jekyll & Hyde"
But the excuse he supplied was denied
& at the court where judges preside
It was implied that he would be tried
Where justice would be applied
But as if to deride
The criminal justice system's bona fides
He died.

As awful as that is, here's how I began this post before Georgie sent in his poem:

In conversation with a conservationist, I happened to overhear an overbearing person complaining about plain communication.

You dodged a bullet!

Now More Than Ever Before!

If you can believe it, Self Help Radio has entered the twentieth century - er, I mean, the twenty-first century - with guns blazing & shirtsleeves uprolled. Wait. Is it the twenty-first century yet? I couldn't throw away my 1987 Garfield calendar. That cat is fun-nee!

In any event, Self Help Radio has begun communicating on a more modern level. That's right! We've incorporated the latest improvements in telepathic slang & nanotechnological gesticulation to make every movement & utterance more meaningful than previously thought possible. Skeptical? Cynical? Cyclical? Have you not been paying attention? YOU'RE UNDERSTANDING ME NOW!

In the immortal words of Carol Burnett &/or Freddy Nietzsche, "The last thing at the end of the day is to say you're really fucking sorry about the first thing at the beginning of the next day." Actually, that's not either of them. I think I heard it on Smallville. Or maybe Californication. But that makes the point: we're hip to the happening network & pay cable shows! We are high def & low culture & there'll be no middle ground anymore - we come at you like geese at a cracker. No two ways about it. Idiomatic & hydrostatic. Problematic & slightly grammatical. Tables out, chairs in. No more puzzles - just problems!

We welcome you therefore on the journey that, if we had a lifetime, would have begun earlier. Since we needed time to get our bearings, learn to read, lose our virginity (we wish!), wait for the appropriate technology to be invented, buy a computer, find a radio station that wouldn't make us play crappy music, & stop being so afraid all the time (we wish!), we have a fraction of a lifetime. But it starts now! But what about last week's show? What about all the shows we've done in the last year? Well, visit them if you must, but don't get hung up. That was then, this is tomorrow. Now. Tomorrow now! Today!

Todaymorrow! Right now! & also later. It's a continual process. Morrowday! Something like that. We're working on it.

A Week Day Day Dreaming

What a week. I know, I haven't spent much time talking about Self Help Radio, but then, you haven't spent much time talking about Barack Obama. Or the election. Or people committing suicide by jumping off spaghetti bowls & then leaving notes for the president-elect. So I suppose we're even. Not! You owe me! You owe me big time!

I can talk about tomorrow's show today, however, & that sounds a little like a bumper or whatever you call those things that people play to hype something coming up. A teaser? A French tickler? A Barack Obama? Who knows. Anyway, I will - I promise! - finish the Indiepop Cs tomorrow. You have my word on it. Will I get to the Ds? No. Will I include bands that will make indiepop purists be all like, "Aw, man, the Cranes [or insert any other band name] ain't indiepop!" I will! Will I get a weird email from a person who's not really in a band & who in fact has only made recordings for his myspace page under a band's name complaining that I didn't include his band in "it's rightful place" in the Indiepop A To Zs? I don't imagine I will. Not again, anyway.

Listen! Listen at selfhelpradio.net! Listen in the afternoon! You won't be sorry. You may feel a little sick. But that's because you'll drink too much tonight. I am not responsible for that. Really I am not.

The Self Help Radio Email Archive Project: Submission Four

Trying to flirt, failing miserably, I make fun of some "Myths & Facts" about STDs-type handout. This email from September 1996!

MYTHS & FACTS ABOUT GARY'S EMAIL

MYTH: Gary's emails aren't serious, so there's no need to worry about them.

FACT: Gary's emails are usually easy to ignore. But that's the key, they *must* be ignored & only a hard-ass attitudinal chick can accurately notice the seriousness of Gary's emails & act accordingly. Email of Gary's that is allowed to go unignored can be dangerous. If its bacteria & harmful desires & ideas spread through the brain & into the vital organs, it can lead to a more severe condition, even possibly sexual contact.

MYTH: Drinking a lot of cranberry juice will counteract the affects of Gary's email.

FACT: While cranberry juice is tasty & leaves your lips all red & sticky, it cannot help you with Gary's email. Only antibiotics, taken as proscribed by a health care provider, & some serious attitude, available only through your self-respect & self-knowledge, can stop the effects of Gary's email.

MYTH: As soon as one of Gary's emails is read, its danger is gone.

FACT: Results of Gary's emails may disappear after the email is read & deleted, but the irritation of ideas & self-understanding (not to mention the back-handed flattery & the saccharin sweetness) may remain in the heart & brain for much longer. That's why it's important to take all of the medication prescribed, sleep with as many other boys as possible, smoke butts & hang out with tattooed & pierced ne'er-do-wells, & admire yourself in mirrors & windows, because although you may feel all right, the sick words that remain in your head can lead to a recurrence of the email's effects.

MYTH: If Gary is able to write such stuff, he may be intelligent (cute, witty, charming, etc.).

FACT: Gary is dumb & ugly. Like you first thought. Duh. Much of his material is a bad copy of things he's read or heard. Reading more, listening to more music, watching more movies, etc., will enable you to catch him in his plagiaristic ways.

MYTH: The flightless hummingbird can go for weeks without drinking any hard liquor, though usually that's because it's working & just doesn't have the time.

FACT: Well, actually, that's true.

Whither Indiepop A To Z # 17?

Who cares? BARACK OBAMA is the NEXT PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES!

I almost didn't come in to work today. What a magnificent moment in my country! What a remarkable thing to happen in my lifetime! It's a hell of a time to be alive.

Sigh.

Preface To Indiepop A To Z # 17: Aw, Who'm I Kidding, I'm Paying Attention To The Election!

Damn it! Why couldn't I have slept all day! Polls won't be closing anywhere for hours, & the exit pollers are being more careful because they're afraid they'll get burned. Rats!

Can you believe Obama may well win this? Everyone is predicting victory, but I personally believe that if there's a way to steal an election, the Republicans will find it & do it. Not that I'm terribly partisan, but I find what Robert Kennedy Jr wrote about the 2004 election (& the current one) compelling, & of course the 2000 election was a fucking joke. So. The bets may be on Obama, but I hope people keep voting & I hope that he wins.

I'm quietly working on this week's show, but I can't wait for this election to be over. Egads! Gadzooks! Zounds! Zoiks! Sputter sput sput!

Please Vote!

This tiny blog, which gets an average of no readers per day (I don't count myself, but if I did, it really wouldn't affect the average) (as I am a non-person) (they got the joke, dumbass) (touchy!), still would feel remiss & non-citizen-like if it didn't contain this message:

Please vote tomorrow.

That's all. This blog would prefer you vote for the person that the person who writes this blog voted for (Barack Obama), but this blog would also just fucking LOVE to live in a country where a vast majority of its citizens voted. Who cared enough about the future of their communities, their cities, their states, their federal government, to vote for people they felt represented their views! Surely you'd like that too!

So please. Vote. Or the ghost of Molly Ivins will haunt you.

Or, who'm I kidding. I'd love the ghost of Molly Ivins to haunt me.

Still, vote!