Absence Makes The Heart Grow Bloodier

I will be visiting my momsie in Dallas for the next three days so I have to apologize for three things:

1) I may not be posting anything here. I'd be more concerned if I thought you cared. Since I know you don't, I'm still sorry. I do try to be consistent, even if I'm consistently inconsistent.

2) I may actually be posting things here. Who knows? It may be late, in a hotel room that only gets Fox News on the television, & I may have nothing to say. Sorry about that in advance.

3) Monday's show, which is about the number zero, may get zero preparation. That may seem appropriate but I would feel pretty awful if that were the case. My apologies in advance if the show sucks.

It's humorous, though. It's been muggy here in Lexington, & has gotten up into the mid-90s, but it's in no way as awful as Dallas. Here's the forecast:

Thursday: high of 99 degrees
Friday: high of 99 degrees
Saturday: high of 101 degrees

Here's Lexington for the next few days:

Thursday: high of 85 degrees
Friday: high of 86 degrees
Saturday: high of 86 degrees

There really is a difference. What a time to go see fambly!

Spy World

This blog entry about today's Self Help Radio is in code. Please refer to your Self Help Radio Spy Decoder Kit which I hope you've already sent your box-tops in to receive. If you haven't, please eat more Self Help Radio Brand Super Sugar Marbles cereal & then hurry back as this note will self-destruct in five minutes.

Defying the KGB, the CIA, the FBI, MI6, the Inspector Closeau Society (I imagine that's what the French call their international espionage agency), Interpol, SHIELD, Checkmate, & any other number of national, international, extraterrestrial & fictional spy organizations, Self Help Radio proudly broadcast its devastating expose of the world of espionage. No one was safe! Moles were exposed! Duplicitous deals were uncovered! It was worse than Wikileaks!

Actually, I just played a lot of songs about secret agents & stuff. The songs I played are below. The show is back at headquarters with Miss Moneypenny at self help radio dot net. It is divided in two parts & you must have the proper clearance to listen to both. Part one is at planning; while part two is at execution.

Remember, if you get caught listening to this show, I will deny I ever made it. But thanks for listening anyway!

(part one)
"Sooperspy" Madd Inc. _The Ikon Records Story_
"Espionage" Los Straitjackets _¡Viva Los Straitjackets!_
"I'm A Double Naught Spy" Perpetuated Spirits Of Turpentine _Aliens, Psychos & Wild Things Vol. 3_

"The James Bond Theme (Brian Gearwhore & Alex Xenophon Remix)" Leroy Holmes _Electro Lounge: Electronic Excursions In Hi-Fi Stereo_
"Sock It To 'Em JB" Rex Garvin _Sock It To 'Em Soul: 60s Club Soul Classics_
"Mission Impossible" James Taylor Quartet _Acid Jazz Movie & TV Themes_
"I Spy (For The FBI)" Luther Ingram & The G-Men _Foxy Devil 7"_
"Number One Spy" Syd Dale _Cinemaphonic Soul Punch - A Selection Of British Library Music 1970-1976_

"Agnes" Mike Russo _Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From The Golden Age_
"Man From U.N.C.L.E./The Spies" Al Caiola _Ultra-Lounge, Vol. 13: TV Town_
"Secret Agent Man" Johnny Rivers _The Best Of Johnny Rivers_

(part two)
"Theme From Get Smart" Hugo Montenegro _Come Spy With Me_
"Secret Agent Man" Devo _Duty Now For The Future_
"Model Spy" Cinerama _This Is Cinerama_

"Je Serai Espionne" Baxendale _You Will Have Your Revenge_
"The Avengers" The Laurie Johnson Orchestra _The Avengers & Other Top Sixties TV Themes_
"Agent Double-0-Soul" Edwin Starr _Soul Master_
"Spy In The Lounge" Dusty Trails _Dusty Trails_
"The Last Of The Secret Agents" The Revillos _Wireless Recordings_
"Spy School Graduation Theme" Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet _Sport Fishin'_

"I Spy" Beat Happening _1983-1985_
"I Spy" Earle Hagen _Ultra Lounge Vol. 7: The Crime Scene_
"Russian Spy & I" Hunters _Pebbles Volume 25: The Continent Lashes Back - Holland, Part 3_
"My Baby Loves The Secret Agent" Detroit Cobras _Seven Easy Pieces_
"Spy Chase" Bruno Nicolai _Easy Tempo Vol. 7_

Whither Espionage?

Can I say at the outset that this blog entry is a cheat? I didn't have time to write it on Sunday, so I am writing it very early Monday morning, though I am pre-dating it so it appears to have been written on Sunday. You might never have actually known, since you probably don't even read this blog, but I had to confess. I'd make a terrible spy.

I was more charmed when I was a kid by superheroes than spies, although I guess I thought James Bond was pretty cool, & enjoyed cheesey sixties spy stuff when I saw it in repeats on the TV. I took everything like that very seriously, & in ninth grade I wrote the first few chapters of a "spy book" in which I & my nerdy friends were all characters. One of those friends - we were probably never friends, but I suppose he tolerated me - was downright offended by my characterization of him, though I thought I was being flattering. Nerds! I swear.

I do think his code name was "Egghead." Tee hee.

I wrote it in pencil & I still have it somewhere, though time has smudged it a lot. I don't really want to reread it. I am happy to have the past fade away as most of it is meant to do.

Um, I'm supposed to be talking about espionage. I'm not much of an expert on it. I prefer mystery novels to spy novels, & much of the tongue in cheek of the Bond movies or the Avengers feels very dated to me now, although, as I mentioned above, as a child it wasn't kitschy or silly to me, I took it very seriously. Perhaps that's why I find the music so compelling - I'm not looking back with a smirk but taking it seriously.

I don't know. Hey, do you know the best way to find out if the FBI has a file on you?

Preface To Espionage: The Spy Movie Who Loved Me

As always, Self Help Radio is a little late in the game, which is following the celebration of cheesy spy movies, which are movies made in the sixties on the heels of the James Bond success, which culminated in the late nineties/early aughts with the spoofs with the Saturday Night Live people that I confess I never saw. Also at the time, David Gedge of the Wedding Present made a couple of records as "Cinerama" which attempted to incorporate the production music sounds of the sixties & seventies into a more poppy milieu. Indeed, even at old KOOP radio, there was a show called - er - I've forgotten it now! - I know I subbed it - I'll have to look it up - Cinemaphonics that's it! - which is also the name of one or two of those collections of production music - which played nothing but music in that vein, & was pretty popular.

& now, too many years later, Self Help Radio does a show about espionage.

I guess it's not that bad. I could be doing a show about singing cowboys. Sixty years after their heyday.

This spring I did manage to watch (or re-watch) the first three Sean Connery James Bond movies. I had intended to watch them all in a row, but something distracted me. Probably something I hadn't seen before. I understand their charms. I will try to convey some of their charms in the radio show. But you won't get to see all the gadgets I will have with me. Not on the radio you won't.

Top Celebrities From Garland, Texas

Rats, I see I still haven't made the list of Top 5 Celebrities From Garland, Texas, which is a shame not only because I'm not at all a celebrity, but unlike Celebrity No. 5, who is called "Leann Rimes" - someone I've never heard of - as well as Celebrity No. 1, Mike Judge, whom I have heard of - unlike both of them I was actually born in Garland.

Indeed, though it's apparently devoted to the "Number 1 Celebrity From Garland," Mike Judge's wikipedia page doesn't even mention the city of Garland at all.

The other three, one a performer in a country music band I've never heard of, one a basketball player with an awesome nickname (also someone I've never heard of), & the last an American sitcom star from the 80's, all seem to have been born in Garland & thank the gravelly-voice lord they made it out of there.

I'm a little surprised, actually, at how few famous people have come from what I have often referred to as "the armpit of the Metroplex." There are a lot of people there. But maybe I ought not be surprised. It seems a wonder that people ever make it out of that place. My mother's been trapped there since the early 1950s. Most of my siblings have hardly been anywhere else. It frankly takes an extraordinary amount of energy to reach escape velocity from Garland's gravitational pull.

Have you ever heard how Douglas Adams advises one in the art of flying? He says, "There is an art, or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground & miss." To miss the ground, one must be distracted at the moment before one hits. That seems to have been my way of getting out of Garland. I was caught up in the whole "go to college after high school" business & didn't notice I was leaving the city forever.

To be the non-celebrity I am justly not celebrated for today!

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Three

I've written a few times on this blog about the inane "A Joke A Day" email service (I'm sure there's more than one) which I would often subscribe to for email accounts that, back in the day, were free but which I never used. Often those email accounts would expire if you didn't have email coming to them, but because I thought it was (at least initially) funny to have email accounts at startrekonline.com & muslimonline.com (both sites, & my email addresses, are long defunct), I'd sign up for an account & then subscribe to the A Joke A Day service. One account I use still gets them, & I rarely read them, but am too lazy to unsubscribe. I recently thought, what if I actually saved them, then featured what I consider the best, or funniest, or worst, or most notable, or simply something to talk about once a week? & so I shall.

Occasionally, on our dog walks, I tell my love Magda one of the A Joke A Days that I have recently received. But I realized something when I was trying to relate a recent A Joke A Day - I almost always have to rephrase - almost reconstruct - the joke from the version in the A Joke A Day email. Take this one, for example, which was Monday's A Joke A Day:

A lawyer was cross-examining the doctor about whether or not he had checked the pulse of the deceased before he signed the death certificate. "No," the doctor said. "I did not check his pulse." "& did you listen for a heartbeat?" asked the lawyer. "No I did not," the doctor said. "So," said the lawyer, "when you signed the death certificate, you had not taken steps to make sure he was dead." The doctor said, "Well, let me put it this way. The man's brain was in a jar on my desk but, for all I know, he could be out practicing law somewhere."

When you read that, don't you get the impression there's actually a somewhat decent joke in there somewhere?

Might that mean that the A Joke A Day folks could employ some decent editors? I suppose they might, if the whole site - the whole operation - weren't treated as an afterthought.

As an update from last week's A Joke A Day, in which the site which tries so hard not to offend managed to let an offensive slur for Asians & Pacific Islanders slip through: I did write the info address on the site & mention the racial slur, but so far, a week later, I have received no response. I did try to find the joke on their website, but it's not easy to navigate & a search for key phrases found nothing. Since the site is entirely user-created (ie, they rely on submissions for content) might they have banished a jokester on my complaint? I wish!

By the way, if you really want to see how far they - a purveyor of humor, you understand - try so hard not to offend, you should see the "categories" they've invented to make sure their jokes are "politically correct" & "clean." George Carlin is rolling his eyes in his grave.

Rat-A-Tat-Tat America!

Happy Independence Day! Self Help Radio has never landed on July 4th on the calendar before, so of course I had to do a show about America. Though there are some songs about the Fourth of July too. & some girls in Greenville, Texas, singing the Star-Spangled Banner in a way that might not please your ears.

There are fireworks exploding all around right now, & my pets think we've moved to Iraq, so I'd better put this up before the day is done & we're no longer independent. The show is celebrating its freedom at Self Help Radio on the web, which I would call the Website of the Free except I have to pay for it. The show is divided into two parts (no, not "American" & "The Rest Of The World," although maybe next time...) with part one right here & part two right over here. The songs I played & which part they're in are below. Remember to listen from a safe distance! Self Help Radio can explode at any moment.

Okay, probably not.

(part one)
"Fireworks" Grady Tate _Schoolhouse Rock: America Rock_
"Three Dates" Jon Stewart _The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America: The Book_

"Yankee Doodle Dandy" James Cagney _100 Years Of Cinema: 40 Classic Performances_
"Fourth Of July" Galaxie 500 _This Is Our Music_
"Fourth Day Of July" The Washington Squares _Fair & Square_
"4th Of July" X _See How We Are_

"Democracy" Leonard Cohen _The Future_
"The Star Spangled Banner" Gospel Girls Of Greenville, TX _Jesus Made Me Do It, Vol. 2_
"Star-Spangled Banner" Culturcide _Tacky Souvenirs Of Pre-Revolutionary America_
"An Open Letter To The Youth Of America" Conception Corporation _Complete Conception_

(part two)
"I Am A Real American" Rodd Keith _I Died Today_
"American Eagle" Bruce Haack _Listen Compute Rock Home: The Best Of Dimension 5_

"This Land Is Your Land" Woody Guthrie _This Land Is Your Land: The Asch Recordings, Volume 1_
"Power & The Glory" Phil Ochs _All The News That's Fit To Sing_
"The Great Compromise" John Prine _Great Days_
"Coming To America" Me First & The Gimme Gimmes _Have Another Ball_
"Rockin' In The Free World" Neil Young _Freedom_
"America Is" Violent Femmes _Add It Up (1981-1993)_

"America" Fast & Dirty _Live From Our Pants_
"That's America" Bruce McCulloch _Shame-Based Man_
"America The Beautiful" Ray Charles _Genius Of Soul_
"God Bless America" Peter Donner _The Talent Show_

Whither America?

I've probably mentioned this before, but in the many years I've done Self Help Radio, I've not received a lot of constructive criticism. (Does someone calling me during the show & screaming YOU SUCK!! into the phone count as "constructive criticism"? Then maybe I've received a lot of it...) But during one of my previous radio station's peer evaluation processes I did get some nice comments from someone who didn't do a music show & who seemed actually quite puzzled about one aspect of the show, which was:

The reviewer didn't understand why I did the themes I did when I did the themes I did.

In other words, why do a show about cheese on April 4th? Is that National Cheese Day? (Isn't every day National Cheese Day? No? Call your Member Of Congress today!)

Initially that bothered me, but upon reflection I understood her unhappiness. Most radio shows busted out the themes only on holidays, like Christmas or Halloween, or on anniversaries like birthdays or deathdays. The arbitrary quality of the show probably has turned folks off now & then.

In other words, the raison d'etre of Self Help Radio troubled the reviewer.

I think about that review on weeks like this one, when my show happily falls on a big-time national holiday. No confusion here! It's the first time Self Help Radio has fallen on the fourth of July, so it would be dumb not to do a show about America.

So let's do it. Tomorrow morning at 7:30 am on 88.1 fm WRFL, available online at wrfl dot fm. I might make it through the day & put the show up on the Self Help Radio website - but you'll have to check to see. I may have Firework Fatigue.

Preface To America: Those Thirteen Colonies

That's a dumb joke, isn't it. The "preface" to America is the colonies from which it rose. Har har.

A long preface, though. Almost as long as we've been a bona fide country. Like, nearly two hundred years. & we're really only about 222 years old.

I wonder how many people think that the United States, like Yankee Doodle, was born on the fourth of July?

Well, it wasn't. The colonies declared their independence from England & King George The Fatty on that day. We celebrate that.

Though Self Help Radio will be celebrating America, not independence. So maybe I thought it America's birthday.

Oh well.

Self Help Radio Extra June In July

Oops, I forgot to mention yesterday (which was the last day of June) that I actually managed to put together a Self Help Radio Extra mix (which I forgot to do in May) but it's still there even though it's the first day of July.

Also, this month's (last month's) Self Help Radio Extra is kind of a repeat of an actual former Self Help Radio show, which aired on October 5, 2007, & was a tribute to Marc Bolan & T Rex. (You can see the playlist here.) It's basically just T Rex covers with a couple of songs that celebrate Marc Bolan & his work. I've added I think nine new covers &/or songs from the original mix, so it's not entirely a repeat. Let's call it an update.

The show is available on the Self Help Radio Extra page. It's under eighty minutes so it can fit on a compact disc, if you still use them, but it's also an mp3 so you can put it wherever you can put mp3s, which is anywhere. Oh, & it's all music, so you don't have to hear me jabber on about how much I love Marc Bolan.

Although if you do want to know how much I love him, I did do an entire radio show in tribute to him, plus this mix, plus I named my male cat after him. That's him in the picture on this page. Like Marc Bolan, my cat Bolan loves to boogie.

Below is the list of songs you can hear. I hope you enjoy!

Self Help Radio Extra June 2011: T Rexstacy

"Gonna Listen To T. Rex (All Night Long)" Burnt Ones _Black Teeth & Golden Tongues_
"Children Of The Revolution" Neon Indian _Children Of The Revolution_
"The Slider" Gavin Friday from _Shag Tobacco_
"Cosmic Dancer" Idle Hands _The Heart We Broke On The Way To The Show_
"Mambo Sun" Bongos from _Drums Along The Hudson_
"Telegram Sam" Bauhaus from _In The Flat Field_
"Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart" Ty Segall _Ty Rex_
"Marc" Louis XIV _Illegal Tender EP_
"Life's A Gas" Shockabilly _Vietnam/Heaven_
"Hot Love" Elf Power from _Nothing's Going To Happen_
"20th Century Boy" Three Johns from _Live In Chicago_
"Rip Off" Dim Stars _Dim Stars_
"Celebrate Summer" Paybacks from _Harder & Harder_
"Jeepster" Sex Clark Five _Strum & Drum_
"Solid Gold Easy Action" Department S _Is Vic There?_
"Baby Strange" Big Star from _Nobody Can Dance_
"Baby Boomerang" Shins from _House Full Of Friends_
"Let Darkness Fall" Licorice Roots _Licorice Roots Orchestra_
"Get It On" Kramer _Great Jewish Music: Marc Bolan_
"Buick MacKane" Nikki Sudden _Groove_
"Ballrooms Of Mars" Richard Barone _Between Heaven & Cello_
"Mystic Lady" Lloyd Cole _Morning Is Broken_
"By The Light Of A Magical Moon" Mars Arizona _Hello Cruel World_
"Light Of Love" Molotov Combo _Resurrection Of The Warlock_

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode Two

I've written a few times on this blog about the inane "A Joke A Day" email service (I'm sure there's more than one) which I would often subscribe to for email accounts that, back in the day, were free but which I never used. Often those email accounts would expire if you didn't have email coming to them, but because I thought it was (at least initially) funny to have email accounts at startrekonline.com & muslimonline.com (both sites, & my email addresses, are long defunct), I'd sign up for an account & then subscribe to the A Joke A Day service. One account I use still gets them, & I rarely read them, but am too lazy to unsubscribe. I recently thought, what if I actually saved them, then featured what I consider the best, or funniest, or worst, or most notable, or simply something to talk about once a week? & so I shall.

But I'm not sure how long I'll be able to sustain a "series" like this, since the average A Joke A Day is pretty lame. Moreover, unlike most humor, it tries so desperately hard not to offend.

Here's the A Joke A Day I got yesterday, which is a perfect example of two really dumb aspects of the A Joke A Day joke, one of which is the desire not to offend:

A man with a wooden eye was very sensitive about his eye for fear of people making fun of him. One day this man decides to go out & have some fun. So he goes to a bar & orders a beer. Then, out of the corner of his eye he sees a woman with a flat face. He thinks,” Well, she wouldn't make fun of me because she would understand how I feel." So he finally gathers up the courage to talk to her, he goes over & asks her, “Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?" & the woman answers, “Would I!!!" (Wood Eye) The man, obviously offended, screams, "Flat face!!!" & storms out of the bar.

Have you ever heard anyone described as having a "flat face"? I haven't, & when I googled the term, I got first & foremost www.flatfacefingerboards.com, a website for (it says) "all your fingerboard needs," & this definition from the Urban Dictionary: "Racial slur aimed at Asians & Pacific Islanders."

This may undercut my point - it certainly seems offensive - but I don't think it's a common term, & I don't think that the editors of the A Joke A Day mailing list knew it was anything but a euphemism for the word they really should have used, which is the deeply offensive term "ugly."

(By the way, according to this article, humans all have flat faces compared to the apes from which we evolved.)

I don't know why they didn't use the word ugly, but then again I don't know why teachers these days refuse to fail kids. There are surely ugly people, & being one myself, I think it's fine to note such things. I hope I have qualities that balance my lack of physical attractiveness, just as I'm sure some very pretty people are as shallow as a petri dish. The word "ugly" would not offend me, & I don't think it would offend most self-aware ugly people.

(I was just thinking I should send them an email about the "flat face" thing. Do you think they'd issue an apology?)

The other aspect is the incredible condescension they display when telling these jokes. The set-up is utterly ridiculous - who has wooden eyes? Dolls, I suppose, but no one else. But I understand the hoops a joke must go through to get to its pun. However, the average A Joke A Day so distrusts the intelligence of its reader - who, you know, has subscribed to a joke that it needs to make perfectly clear - in the middle of the joke - its painfully obvious pun. I repeat:

“Would you like to have dinner with me sometime?" & the woman answers, “Would I!!!" (Wood Eye)

I confess the A Joke A Day compilers don't always do that - if the pun is a homonym, for example, they'll simply use the appropriate spellings - like if someone in the joke says "right" but the listener hears "write," they'll use the spelling the speaker understands. But in a situation like the one above, they will usually (& literally) spell it out. Because they imagine their average subscriber is dumb as dirt.

Which we may be. Since we might be offended by the term "ugly."

Did You Remember To Listen?

As alcohol & age dull my faulty memory, I take the time to go on the radio to play songs about remembering & also to remind you that your memories are nowhere nearly as accurate as you think they are. I can't even say for certain that I remember doing that this morning on the radio, even with a recording. My brain operates according to rules that I don't remember agreeing to.

In case you forgot to listen, the show (which frankly wasn't all that memorable) is now available for your listening pleasure when & if you remember to listen at the show's website. I remembered to divide it into two parts, & part one is where this link leads you while I think I put part two behind this link. I may forget before I finish writing this, but if I remember, the songs contained in both parts will be listed below.

(part one)

"I Remember, I Remember (Thomas Hood)" Tim Pigott-Smith _Poetry Please: The Anniversary Edition_
"Remember" Durutti Column _Someone Else's Party_

"Remember" Air _Moon Safari_
"Do You Remember?" Doktor Cosmos _Cocktail_
"Remember?" Lali Puna _Our Inventions_
"Remember Me" Rita Pavone _Hey! Look What I Found! Vol. 9_
"Remember (Walking In The Sand)" Shangri-Las _The Shangri-Las & The '60s Girl Group Garage Sound_
"I'll Remember" The Kinks _Face To Face_

"I Forgot To Remember To Forget" Elvis Presley _The Sun Sessions CD_
"Something To Remember You By" The Gentlemen _Chicken Shack Boogie, Vol. 6_
"I've Got Dreams To Remember" Otis Redding _The Otis Redding Story 1962-1967_
"Remember When" The Four Tops _The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 8_
"Remember Who You Are" Sly & The Family Stone _Back On The Right Track_

(part two)
"Dates To Remember" Gary Owen _Put Your Head On My Finger_

"Remember" John Lennon _Plastic Ono Band_
"Do You Remember" Tyrannosaurus Rex _The Definitive Tyrannosaurus Rex_
"I Remember You" The Ramones _Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology_
"Remember Me" British Sea Power _The Decline Of British Sea Power_
"Remember (Christina Rossetti)" Diana Quick _Poetry Please: The Anniversary Edition_
"You Must Please Remember" Morrissey _Dagenham Dave_

"Do You Remember" Talulah Gosh _Backwash_
"I Remember" The Visitors _Miss_
"Remember" The Boyfriends _The Boyfriends_
"Remember Me To Her" St. Christopher _Dig Deep, Brother (1984-1990)_
"Sometimes I Remember" Pernice Brothers _Yours Mine & Ours_
"Remember Me, Remember U" Teach Me Tiger _Thirty Forty Fives Vol. 1_

Whither Remembering?

Memories fade & are usually unreliable. Eyewitness accounts are often widely different. Yet we place a huge importance on the process of remembering, & sharing memories - or doing things that create shared memories - is one thing humans enjoy most.

There's a wonderful word, which is a whole other theme, but I can talk about it here, which is "nostalgia," which illustrates the point I am meandering about above very well - it's a yearning, a longing for days past, which many folks remember as much better. A perfect example, which Bill Maher often points out, is people in the United States who wish for the "better days" of the 1950s or before - all the while forgetting (or maybe not?) that there were a great number of Americans back then who were treated as second-class citizens & not allowed basic rights.

(As I wrote that, I realized I could have meant both African-Americans & women!)

As someone who, when his brain was working perfectly fine, used to worry about losing memories, about not being able to remember my life in all its dreary minute detail, I would now horrify the younger me by not caring very much. I lose words when I talk, I have forgotten whole swaths of time, & it doesn't bother me as much as it should. & I know why - it's because I understand that memory itself is unreliable.

I often say - well, let me illustrate what I was going to say with a story. An old roommate was reminiscing living with me about fifteen or twenty years ago. He said, "What I remember most is that you never threw away shampoo bottles - there were always half a dozen nearly empty shampoo bottles around."

I remember no such thing, but that doesn't mean I remember differently. It could certainly be true. So I said what I often say these days when I don't have memories that align with the memories of other people - I said, "It certainly sounds like something I'd do."

You might not remember, but Self Help Radio's show about remembering is on tomorrow morning (that's Monday the 27th) at 7:30 am on the 88.1 fm frequency in Lexington, & online at wrfl dot fm - but if you do forget to remember, it'll be put on the Self Help Radio website at self help radio dot net. I always remember to do that.

Preface To Remember...: You Remember Wrong

It's touching how much humans rely upon their memories, but it's sad how memories betray us. I recently counseled my sister, who was feeling old & thinking she couldn't remember dumb shit from her past, that it didn't really matter, since she probably didn't remember them the way they actually happened anyway. It still seems a little strange for me to feel this way, since I used to worry in my youth about forgetting everything that happened to me, & kept a kind of diary for some time in early adulthood. (The diary is totally boring & useless now, by the way, since I often will refer to people that I honestly can't remember, & usually by their first names, which is maddeningly unhelpful.)

I don't worry about forgetting thing so much anymore. Everything I read about the human brain suggests that when we do remember, we remember a lot of our lives incorrectly. We remember, mostly, to protect ourselves. I recently became reacquainted with someone from my past & was honestly surprised that he had completely remade his past, when he had done some awful things, into a sort of sad tableau wherein people had hurt him for indiscriminate reasons. I don't think he was lying, I think he was utterly sincere. & he seemed downright puzzled that some folks from that time had any hostility toward him.

I flatter myself that I am somewhat self-aware, & so I imagine that I do the same things. In fact, I completely understand that it's not even a conscious choice, that our brains have evolved in such a way to try, at the very least, to make sure we're the heroes of our lives or, failing that, that we at least hold on to some modicum of sanity in a narrative that doesn't make fill us with complete self-loathing. How else could we live with some of the things we know we're capable of?

There are other ways our brain fucks with us of course, but the way our memory betrays us seems especially poignant to me.

The Self Help Radio iPhone App

Does not exist.

But if it did, what would it do?

I'd imagine it would be connected with some over-the-top database - requiring me to pay exorbitant fees to hated record companies - that would match your idea for a "theme" to a series of songs that you could download &/or play.

I think I would probably try to block more mainstream songs, not because I would not necessarily play them on the show, but just out of spite. Does Sony really need more money? Really?

I'd probably also have to record lots of meaningless factoids so you could enter a "theme" into the app &, when available, there'd be my tired voice saying something like, "It's a fungus so it's not really a plant or an animal."

(I've actually done a Self Help Radio about mushrooms, so I got to play songs about fungus. Push the button & hear "Slender Fungus" by Tones On Tail!)

What else? I'm new to the whole "app" thing, having no iPhone & only recently getting a secondhand iPad from my wife, who had no use for it.

I suppose there'd be the obligatory pictures of beagles. There can never been enough pictures of beagles.

But what else? Would there be no other options for the Self Help Radio iPhone app?

Then it's a good thing it doesn't exist.

A Joke A Day A Week, Episode One

I've written a few times on this blog about the inane "A Joke A Day" email service (I'm sure there's more than one) which I would often subscribe to for email accounts that, back in the day, were free but which I never used. Often those email accounts would expire if you didn't have email coming to them, but because I thought it was (at least initially) funny to have email accounts at startrekonline.com & muslimonline.com (both sites, & my email addresses, are long defunct), I'd sign up for an account & then subscribe to the A Joke A Day service. One account I use still gets them, & I rarely read them, but am too lazy to unsubscribe. I recently thought, what if I actually saved them, then featured what I consider the best, or funniest, or worst, or most notable, or simply something to talk about once a week? & so I shall.

The most common A Joke A Day is pretty lame. You've probably heard it before, & I confess to never actually laughing at any A Joke A Day. But this A Joke A Day, from Wednesday the 22nd, is based on a pretty funny pun, but seemed exceptionally clumsy in its execution - & it was familiar:

"When Mozart passed away, he was buried in a churchyard.

"A couple days later, the town drunk was walking through the cemetery & heard some strange noises coming from the area where Mozart was buried. Terrified, the drunk ran & got the priest to come & listen to it. The priest bent close to the grave & heard some faint, unrecognizable music coming from the grave. Frightened, the priest ran & got the town magistrate.

"When the magistrate arrived, he bent his ear to the grave, listened for a moment, & said, 'Ah, yes, that's Mozart's Ninth Symphony, being played backwards.'

"He listened a while longer, & said, 'There's the Eighth Symphony, And it's backwards, too. Most puzzling.'

"So the magistrate kept listening; 'There's the Seventh... the Sixth...the Fifth...'

"Suddenly the realization of what was happening dawned on the magistrate; he stood up & announced to the crowd that had gathered in the cemetery. 'My fellow citizens, there's nothing to worry about. It's just Mozart decomposing.'"

I'm not a classical music maven but I do know that the composer most associated with nine symphonies isn't Mozart (who actually composed over forty of them) but Beethoven. I know for the sake of the joke it's just important it's a classical music composer that you recognize, but this does seem especially lazy.

The other thing is, I laughed at this joke the first time I saw it, which happened to be in a The Far Side cartoon by Gary Larson:



Suffice it to say, the economy of style Larson had to use makes the pun more impressive, & doesn't require the lengthy set-up. It also doesn't require the weird notion that music played backwards is somehow music returning to its source - & you know, symphonies are played with full orchestras, so you had an prodigious amount of sound returning into the dead composer's head.

(Or so I assume. The joke suggests the music is faint, but I can't imagine it was coming from dead Mozart.)

I am over-analyzing but I'll be doing that on Thursdays from now on. It's fun (for me) to pick apart why something isn't terribly funny. This joke, which probably predates the The Far Side cartoon, is as crumbly & decaying as Mozart in his grave, but there's something I will say at the very end which I find interesting, since many of the A Joke A Day jokes have, like their audience, I suppose, a vague American religiosity & positivity that undermines the best humor's cynical, sarcastic & antisocial punch, & it's this:

You've got a dead dude, & music's coming from his grave, but the town's paid expert on spiritual matters, the priest, is not only "frightened" by the noise coming from the grave - his area of expertise - but he actually runs to the town's secular authority, the magistrate - who handily solves the problem after "listening for a moment." Is this supposed to be a mild criticism of the uselessness of religious folks, who really don't (& frankly can't) know more about death than anyone else? Or maybe it was subconscious?

Even if it's the latter, it makes the joke (for me) better than your average A Joke A Day.

A Trip To The Suburbs

elf Help Radio left the big city to visit the suburbs this week, & got a little lost. All the houses look the same! I went to the same convenience store THREE TIMES! I forgot that I grew up in the suburbs. Or maybe I'm pretending I forgot?

The suburbs have their charms, but mostly the music I found was somewhat critical. You can be the judge. The entire suburban show exists in the exurbs called the Self Help Radio website. I have divided the show in half, like a classic two-car garage, & part one is here under all this crap from last Christmas while part two is over near the lawnmower I think. If you forget to close the garage doors before you leave, don't worry - a nice police officer will come to the door to tell us late at night.

The songs in each part are below. Thanks for listening! I have to drive back to the city now.

(part one)
"Sweet Suburbia" Skids _Dunfermline_
"The Sounds Of The Suburbs" The Members _Sound Of The Suburbs: A Collection Of The Members' Finest Moments_

"Surburbia" Pet Shop Boys _Please_
"Suburban Homeboy" Sparks _Lil' Beethoven_
"City & Suburban" Always _Looking For Mr. Wright_
"The Suburb In Between" The Mabels _The Closest People_
"If Not Now..." The Guild League _Speak Up_

"Rockin' The Suburbs (feat. William Shatner)" Ben Folds _Over The Hedge_
"In The Suburbs" Let's Wrestle _Nursing Home_
"Suburban Home" Descendents _Milo Goes To College_

(part two)
"Suburbs" Junior Achiever _All The Little Letdowns_
"Suburban Rock Dolls" The Chubbies _Your Favourite Everything_

"The Suburbs Are Killing Us" My Favorite _The Happiest Days Of Our Lives_
"Suburban Relapse (John Peel Session)" Siouxsie & The Banshees _The Scream_
"Suburban Family Lament" Ruth Copeland _Invictus/Hot Wax Grooves & Breaks_
"Lost In The Supermarket" The Clash _Lost In The Supermarket_
"Suburban Dogs" Real Estate _Real Estate_

"Suburban Girls" The Commercials _Compare & Decide_
"Death In The Suburbs" The Diodes _Tired Of Waking Up Tired_
"Suburban Life" The Novas _Trip In Tyme Vol. 5_

Whither The Suburbs?

Suburbs may require their own haikus.

Suburbs have their own ideas of cheese.

Suburban living has its own special brand of angst.

& of course there's husband- & wife-swapping.

It took a while, but eventually there was even suburban rock music.

Whatever is happening with suburban (aka "white") flight?

An online rhyming dictionary found "no perfect rhymes" for suburb, although some fine imperfect ones exist. For example, this, from the Lucksmiths:

"A storm rolls across the suburbs
& the streets are as empty as the cupboards."

Preface To The Suburbs: Where You From?

According to a Pew Research Center poll from 2008, "more than six-in-ten adults (63%) have moved to a new community at least once in their lives, while 37% have never left their hometowns."

There's more: "The most rooted region" is the Midwest - 46% of adult residents there have spent their entire lives in one community. The West is the "least rooted" - 30% have stayed in their hometown. Where I'm from, the South (if you consider Texas the South, & many Texans do) is 36%, while the East is 38%.

I live in the Midwest now, & it does seem like a lot of the people I meet are from Lexington. However, the poll data says that Texas is a much more "sticky" state - more people who were born there still live there (75%) than people in Kentucky (62%).

More more: 77% of people who went to college & graduated have moved around, while 56% of those who just finished high school or less stayed in their same communities.

Might it be because one often goes away to college & therefore realize there is more out there? There's a reason the word provincial has the word "province" in it.

I dunno. The poll allowed for "stayers" to have the exemption of military duty & college, so some people just really love their hometowns.

The study, which is now three years old, says that the American population is settling down - only 11% of respondents had moved in the last year, which is the lowest amount since researchers started tracking that data in the 1940s. But that was right before the The Great Recession started - I believe more Americans are moving now.

I don't have any data to back that up, though!

Being An Oblate Spheroid...

I was reading about Hipparchus, an ancient Greek astronomer, on the Wikipedia just now (I know, I'm a nerd) (would it be cooler if I mention that he invented trigonometry? no?) because I was reading earlier about the phenomenon called precession.

That is not, by the way, the miserable period of time when you realize you're going to be depressed all day. Unless we're still collecting sniglets? Are we?

Anyway, the article says that Hipparchus is "known for being almost universally recognized as discoverer of the precession of the equinoxes." That basically means that the sky, as we perceive it, tends to move around, so the "fixed stars" aren't quite so fixed. & to annoy astrologers, this is mentioned every few years because the constellations that they think determine their fates are not where they're supposed to be anymore, having moved one sky-segment over.

Why does precession happen? It's all about the shape of the Earth. This is what I read:

"Being an oblate spheroid, the Earth has a nonspherical shape, bulging outward at the equator." This makes the earth spin not like a top (as we imagine when we spin a globe) but more like a gyroscope.

It's all the more amazing because Oblate Spheroid was my nickname in high school. That, or "Fatty Fatty Fat Pants Faggot."

I feel more proud of the first one. After reading this today, I mean.