Self Help Radio 013015: Jerks

(Original image here.)

God, some people are such jerks.  Did you know, some jerks get an entire radio show about them?  Can you even imagine it?  What sort of jerk makes a radio show about jerks?  A big ol' jerk, I bet!  But does it make you a jerk to listen to a radio show about jerks?

That's for you to find out!  You can listen to Self Help Radio's show about jerks any time you'd like because it's now over at the Self Help Radio website.  The site is kinda password protected, so please make sure you see the login (SHR) & the password (selfhelp) while you're there.  Yeah, I just gave them to you - I'm not some kind of a jerk!

The jerky songs I played are below.  About half of them appear to be about a dance craze in the mid-60s that for some reason never attached itself to the pejorative "jerk."  I guess that's how dance crazes are.

Thanks for listening!  (You're not a jerk.)

(part one)

"Bongo Jerk" Laurel Aitken _Laurel Aitken: Ska Legend_
"Buzz The Jerk" The Pretty Things _Get The Picture?_
"Can You Jerk Like Me?" The Contours _The Very Best Of The Contours_
"Cool Jerk" The Go-Go's _Return To The Valley Of The Go-Go's_

"Don't Be A Jerk, Jonny" The Drums _Summertime!_
"Everybody Jerk" Jackie Lee _The Duck_
"How Not To Get Jerked" Boogie Down Productions _Sex & Violence_
"I Can Be A Jerk" Eddy Current Suppression Ring _Rush To Relax_

"I Do The Jerk" Bill Pinkney _Jerk! Shake! & Vibrate!_
"Jerk" Buzzcocks _Buzzcocks_
"The Jerk" The Clarendonians _Trojan Mod Reggae Box Set_
"Jerk" The Haywains _Desperately Seeking Something_

"The Jerk" The Larks _The Jerk_
"The Jerk" Martha & The Vandellas _Dance Party_
"Jerk It With Soul" Willie Walker _Northern Soul Fever, Vol. 3_

(part two)

"Jerk" Noise Addict _Meet The Real You_
"Jerk" Senseless Things _Christine Keeler_
"Jerkin' Back & Forth" Devo _New Traditionalists_
"Jerks On Ice" Elk City _House Of Tongues_

"Jesus What A Jerk" The Verlaines _Some Disenchanted Evening_
"Knee Jerk Reaction" The Green Circles _Antipodean Screams, Vol. 1_
"Long Time Jerk" The Clash _Super Black Market Clash_
"Planet Jerk" Barcelona _Transhuman Revolution_

"Serenade To A Jerk" Spike Jones & His City Slickers _Strictly For Music Lovers_
"She Loves The Jerk" Elvis Costello _Goodbye Cruel World_
"Tear Jerker" Personal & The Pizzas _Raw Pie_
"We're All Jerks" Impanada _Business Deal Band Lotto 2_

"When In Rome (Do The Jerk)" Rocket From The Crypt _All Systems Go III_
"You're A Bigger Jerk Than Me" The Karl Hendricks Rock Band _Oh, Merge_

Whither Jerks?

[This is this blog's 2000th post!  Hooray!]

Frankly I'm surprised there aren't more songs that call jerks what they are.

[2000 of these!  It's kinda crazy, right?]

I found so many damn songs about the 60s dance craze called the Jerk, & frankly, it's kind of a dumb dance.

[I've never done 2000 of any thing!]

So the show tomorrow will be jerk-heavy, but not entirely the kind of jerk you're thinking about.

[Probably not even 2000 radio shows!]

I resisted finding general songs about assholes.  I thought all kinds of the jerk ought to be represented.

[I'm so much more excited about this than anyone else!]

Just giving you a taste of what to expect tomorrow morning.

[Well.  Maybe not that excited.]

As usual, it's on from 7 to 9am on 88.1 fm WRFL in Lexington.

[My cats are looking at me with more withering stares than usual.]

Also simulcast (I don't think I've ever used that word before) at wrfl dot fm.

[They're jerks.]

& of course later at the Self Help Radio homepage.

[Nothing excites them.]

Hope you listen.  Also, congrats to me for 2000 blog posts!

[You noticed!  Hooray!]

1999 Poem

This is not a poem about 1999, a year I don't really remember (that's not true).  It's a poem I've created by laboriously (some may say foolishly) going through & picking the first word of every blog post (including this one, which will be the last word of the poem) I've written for this blog.  It will therefore have 1,999 words.

It goes a little something like this (hit it!):

Hi this when here's but quick this I in I we why Halloween amazingly as before hey
I I do oh you what normally I I I it's recently Halloween as I hey this ah today my I I
It's today's it this I it's I whatever man I'll seriously I'm well people yeah here wow boy
I it's my I that's it's damn greetings alas the another I this a the it's I someone har boy
My I I just nothing like they happy do it's what what this buy hey it's dude I is nothing
I I welcome it's did oh well I've I LB friends thank James I I this need I I I if so dearest I
Hello why because as this as the I'd from I two lookit no I Madchester this my I 1) I I
Yea a hey OH MY GOD THIS IS INSANE!

I barely got through the first five months of 2007!  (I started this blog in late 2006.)  There's no way I'd have the time (not to mention the energy) of going through one thousand nine hundred & ninety nine posts.  What am I, nuts?

Can I at least say I tried?  & maybe not feel like such a loser?

Countdown To 2000

Suddenly it's two days before the end of the world!  Not really.  The 2000 I am referring to is the 2000th post on this dumb blog ostensibly created to supplement my radio show.  Alas!  It does not.

This is post # 1998 (I think) (let me check) (yeah, okay, it is) & I haven't any idea how to of if to make # 2000 a big deal.  There are many things working against making a small milestone (oh god) such as this something to celebrate:

1) No one reads this blog, so the only one who might celebrate is me.
2) I've tried to make little every-hundredth-post milestones (that word) something to celebrate but nobody (since no one reads this blog) made reference or contacted me or whatever so things I had planned to giveaway were never given away.
3) I had thought of a third but forgot because I was distracted by my wife wanting me to hold my diabetic cat so we could check her blood sugar, a two-person job to be sure.

Is it really a big deal?  I dunno.  But I don't want to keep talking about it.  Instead, I should mention that so far this year my favorite record is Malcolm Middleton & David Shrigley's Music & Words.  I think it's quite clever & really funny.  I find it very odd that I never knew who David Shrigley was before.  Now I see him everywhere.  I've just followed him on Twitter!

The record is pretty profane, full of lots of bad words, so most of it I can't really play on the radio.  Like the first track, which I share below.  It's great!



But seriously, if you have any ideas about how to celebrate two thousand Self Help Radio blog posts, let me know.

Also PS: New Louis CK special.  That's fucking awesome!

I'll Never Fly Again

The TSA - the Transportation Security Administration of the United States - has a blog which I've never read before.  Someone commenting on Tumblr led to last Friday's chilling post, TSA 2014 Year In Review.  If that doesn't sound scary - & it really doesn't, I'm not saying it is, or else I'd be frightened by the very thought of year-end lists - please take a second to read the article.  If you do, you'll see pictures like these:

These are grenades (mostly inert) & guns (mostly loaded) taken by the TSA in the past year.

& there's more.  My favorite by far is this one:

The caption reads, "An 8.5" knife was discovered in an enchilada at the Charles M. Schulz–Sonoma County Airport (STS)."

In an ENCHILADA?  At the CHARLES M. SCHULZ airport?  Good grief!

I think it's great that the people we entrust to keep our air travel safe appear to be doing their job, but wow, can you imagine what actually gets through?  Or is that a weird thing to focus on?  Am I really that cynical?

A KNIFE in an ENCHILADA for fuck's sake.  I can't stand it!